


Keep Yourself Alive

by HartwinMakethMan



Series: I Want to Break Free [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy's Redemption Part 1, Billy's Story, Child Abuse, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Harringrove, Internalized Homophobia, Loosely following events of S2, M/M, Mention of a Hate Crime, Period Typical Homophobia, Pining, Pre-Harringrove, Pre-Relationship, Redemption, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-12 00:11:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17456924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HartwinMakethMan/pseuds/HartwinMakethMan
Summary: Billy Hargrove learned a long fucking time ago just how few people he could trust, and just what awaited a person like him in this big bad world. He wouldn't be burned again. His dad was onto him-- why else would he uproot all four of them and move halfway across the country? To some tiny little town in Nowhere, Indiana.Billy couldn't fuck up again. Not even when temptation lay around every corner of Hawkins High, with big brown eyes and a dopey grin. Billy couldn't fuck up again... but that didn't mean he couldn't get a little bit mean. He could show all of this fucking bullshit town who the real king was.**This is Season 2 from Billy's perspective, basically.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S FINALLY HERE! THE BILLY REDEMPTION MEGAFIC. This is just a little taste-- a little prologue to introduce you to my characterization of Billy Hargrove. I'm sorry it's so short but TRUST ME there's a lot more where this came from. Let's get this show on the road and teach our boy how to love! 
> 
> The title is from the Queen song, Keep Yourself Alive. All of the Installments in this series (as well as the series itself) are all named after the Queen songs that I think sound like Billy and Steve! 
> 
> Please, Give me feedback! Tell me what you liked, tell me your favorite part, just give me a thumbs up-- I need to respark my love for this gigantic piece if I'm going to finish it in good time! Thank you and I hope you love this story!!!

**San Diego, 1981**

 

“ _He’s never going to hurt you again. Okay, Billy_?” That’s what she said. “ _I promise_.”

She fucking _promised_.

When Billy first woke up, it felt like the room was underwater. The beeping of the heart monitor, the whir of the other machines, the shouting outside the door—it was all muffled and unintelligible. His surroundings were blurry from the small amount that he could see through his aching eyes. 

His brain was mushy, and he knew the feeling too well. It was a concussion. It had to be. Time was slow and languid. His limbs were weightless and tingly. He couldn’t seem to lift them and panic gripped his chest. 

Something was terribly wrong. 

He looked to his side and a familiar face looked back at him. She smiled at him and the tight ball of panic loosened in his chest. The events of the past week had been real. She was here and there was still hope. 

It had been a week since Mom died when the Suits first showed up at their door. At first, Billy had thought that Crystal and the girls had ratted on him, that they had said what Neil did to him—or maybe they were the Police there to take him away for _what_ he was. But, Billy was wrong—it was damn near routine. CPS was checking in, after the circumstances of Mom’s…

Well, the CPS was fucking blind and Neil was a damn good liar. They were just leaving when Agent Ramirez looked closer. Billy had hated the pity in her eyes. He _hated_ it. He remembered the relief, though, when he finally said what he’d only ever told to the closest people in his life. He’d never told anyone like her--someone who could actually do anything to help him.

Ramirez had given him hope.

That relief was nothing— _nothing_ —compared to the utterly helpless terror of when Neil found out what Billy had done. Even under his current haze of pain meds, Billy could still feel the throb of his muscles and stiffness in his jaw.

He remembered the deafening crack of his bones under his father’s fists.

“Ramirez?” he tried to say, only to be shocked by a spike of pain that traveled through his teeth and up his cheek, lancing through his head. The word came out in a garbled mess as he tried in vain to open his mouth. 

“Billy, Billy—take it easy, don’t speak.” She placated. Her eyes were teary. “I’m so sorry, kiddo. I don’t have much time. I’m off your case.”

 _What_?

There it was—the only hope he had of escaping Neil, gone.

“My superiors… Your dad’s been talking to them. I’ve been accused of harassment and slander.” 

Blinking only hurt the purple and red mottled swelling on his face, but Billy still forced himself to blink away the hot, shameful tears in his eyes. He was fourteen. This was no time to be a baby. He’d been stupid to think she could help him—that _anyone_ would be able to help him.  

Through the window to the hallway, Billy could see a couple of Suits trying to assuage his dad’s Oscar-worthy performance as the slandered father and grieving widower. Billy’s heart felt like a lead weight in his chest as he finally worked out the way the world worked. No matter what he did, no matter whom he thought he could trust, Neil Hargrove would never let him go.

Billy Hargrove wanted his _Mom_. 

The realization brought with it a startling emptiness. For a long moment, he looked back and forth between Ramirez to Neil. And then the void in him filled with a red hot rage. He burned with it. When his heart monitor sped up, he forced away the tears that so badly wanted to fall.

Agent Ramirez squeezed his hand, but Billy jolted into action to rip it away from her. 

“Billy, kiddo, I can’t help you. I’m so sorry—“

The door swung open and a swarm of people-- Neil, Suits, nurses—poured in.

 Neil was apoplectic, and the glare was enough to send a shiver down Billy’s spine.

“ _You_ —get your hands off my boy!” he shouted, and Billy wanted to scream, to cry, to tell the truth to anybody who would listen, _anybody_. He tried in vain to open his mouth, only to taste metal and blood. 

Chaos was everywhere. The Suits were berating Ramirez for her lies and slander toward this “ _poor man_.” They made up bullshit excuses about “ _a history of mental disorders in the boy’s mother_.” 

Billy was helpless. 

“Billy Hargrove was beaten by his father—“  Ramirez cried. 

“Billy Hargrove fell down a flight of stairs, fracturing his jaw and sustaining a concussion.” One of the Suits replied, “He’s in no state for your interrogations!”

Neil advanced on the hospital bed, making a thousand memories of pain and terror flash before his eyes. He flinched when a big hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed in a vice-like grip. He offered everyone a simpering smile, pretending to care. The anger built in Billy’s chest only continued to mount. He felt like he was going to eventually explode. 

“He hasn’t been himself since his mother passed—isn’t that right, Billy?”

The hand on him promised a Hell of a lot of pain if he didn’t play along. Ramirez was shaking her head, but she didn’t _understand_. Billy _had_ to do it, so, he did. He dug his nails into his fists and, with his jaw wired shut and the last of his hope destroyed, Billy gave a jerky nod. He denied the claims Agent Ramirez made and sealed his own fate. 

Neil had won. 

Ramirez didn’t even look at him as the hospital security led her out of the little room. All that time she’d preached to him about being “ _strong_ ” and “ _never_ _giving_ _up_.” And now? Here he was--too broken to speak, let alone speak the truth. Bitterness sunk its claws into Billy, and it _hurt_.

“You’re a fighter, Billy. You’ll be okay—“  she called back to him, but her eyes were on her shoes.

She had _promised_. She had promised him, and she _lied_. At least she was right about one thing: he was a fucking _fighter_. He would fight for himself, unlike any two-bit useless CPS agent, cop, or his own _mother_ ever had.

Billy clenched his jaw and welcomed the agony as it coursed through him. He didn’t cry. He was stronger now.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH for your wonderful feedback! Let me know what you think of this little chapter too-- I really wanted to give more meat to the relationship between Billy and the Chief later in the story, and came up with this headcanon months ago. What if Jim was the first person Billy met in Hawkins? Between Billy's hothead attitude and Jim's job, they must have crossed paths. 
> 
> I hope you love it! Let me know what you think! 
> 
> **Warning for a (super SUPER brief) mention of suicide.

**Hawkins, 1984**

 

The house was hardly The Ritz that was for fucking sure. It was small and looked as fucking filthy as the manure fields they’d passed for the past few hours in the car. The drive was fucking _long_ , and Billy had had no clue just how _flat_ the Midwest was. He had seen actual cows, he’d seen literal mounds of shit, and he was beyond caring about what his dad or Susan thought as he sneered up at “ _their_ _new_ _home_ ”.

He swallowed against the lava hot flow of rage that threatened to pour out of him when Susan had actually opened her mouth and said _that_. 

He missed the _ocean_ , goddamnit. He missed clean, salty breezes and sunshine that was actually warm—not this watery, mid-autumn bullshit. 

It was better than the apartment in San Francisco, though. As long as Billy had his own room, he didn’t really care-- they were stuck here, in the middle of corn-fed nowhere, and that wasn’t going to change.

Fucking _Indiana_.

Billy wanted to punch something, his knuckles itched with it. His muscles felt tight. He had to go somewhere, _anywhere_ , and drive as fast as he could--

“Billy.” he managed to hide his flinch at being torn from his thoughts, not bothering to turn and look at who had called him. He knew her nasty little voice.

Max was looking at him warily-- good, like she damn well should-- where they stood on the gray, dying lawn. They had both been looking up at the stupid, ugly house.

“What?” he drawled, dragging on his cigarette and letting the smoke billow and curl around his face in that way he knew would scare her. He relished the burn of the smoke in his lungs and sinuses.

“Neil said to make sure you unpack the blue car, too.” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot. A prickle of annoyance trailed up Billy’s spine and he hissed out the last of his smoke to keep his cool-- he couldn’t go and do any damage to _Susan’s_ _kid_ , not if he wanted to start school without bruises.

Billy let heavy beat of silence drag out between them as he stared at his stepsister. His jaw was clenched, his eyes gleamed, and he knew he looked like he was thinking about how much he wanted to rip the little bitch apart.

Maybe he really _did_ want to. Billy wasn’t sure just how angry he was anymore, but he definitely didn’t care how his stupid sister felt. 

“Billy--?” 

“It’s a _Camaro_ , Dipshit.” he rolled his eyes, flicking his cigarette butt to the wet grass in front of her scuffed sneakers. 

She rolled her eyes right back at him and a flare of fury ignited his adrenaline. “Yeah, whatever-- just do it.” He could fucking kill that little shit-- no one tells Billy what to do.

“ _Got_ _it_.” he snapped, making her jump just a little, nearly dropping her own moving box. He smirked at her, his gaze following her all the way back up into the house. Max did her best to not look scared, but Billy knew he was freaking her out. The satisfaction mingled with his constant undercurrent of rage and made an addictive cocktail.

Ever since Neil had married Susan, it had been like this. _Susan’s_ _kid_ somehow became his responsibility-- every time _she_ fucked up, _Billy_ had fucked up. That ungrateful little bitch had no clue how Billy got punished for the shit she got away with.

It was more or less a quiet night. Billy’s blood was pounding in his ears like he was about to explode, but it was a quiet night with the normal unpacking and Susan’s bland cooking. The tension surrounding the four people between the scattered boxes was stifling, though, and everything about Billy’s life just felt so fucking _small_. So closed off, suffocating Billy at every turn.  More so than it ever had in California—even San Francisco.

Neil was watching him closely, studying every tiny expression throughout dinner. Max was able to sigh and scoff and roll her eyes, and Billy never thought that he could be jealous of something so simple. Maybe on a different night, when the tension mounted too high for Billy to give a shit, he’d let himself show that kind of emotion.

He knew how that always ended, but it was worth it. It was so fucking _worth_ _it_ if it managed to reset the level of pressure in his house, in his own _body_.  

The Hargrove-Mayfield house was locked in a constant cycle of storms, from the building rage between father and son, to the violent cataclysm of fist against fist, to the brief moments of relief afterward. Then, the tension would start the climb all over again.

Billy needed a fucking smoke by the time dinner was over, slamming out of the rickety screen door before anyone could ask where he was going.

He took his keys with him, and fired up the engine. 

The late October air was icy cold, but it beat the stuffiness of leaving the Camaro’s windows rolled up. He felt penned in enough as it was, he at least wanted breathe real air. Even if it was fucking freezing, and even though it didn’t smell like the sea anymore.

All he could smell were dead leaves and cow shit.

Billy pressed harder on the gas pedal, flying past the endless pattern of fields and trees. He turned up the radio until it blasted out of the speakers and drowned out his traitorous thoughts.

It was his fault that they were here in the first place. He shouldn’t have let down his guard. He should have never let himself hope again. It didn’t take a genius to see that his life didn’t get a happy fucking ending… Then, the cops had showed up. They weren’t CPS, not like last time they had moved. These guys were real cops with badges and guns and power trips. And they wanted to talk to Billy about a murder. A _hate_ _crime_.

If Billy had just controlled himself like Neil was always telling him to, they would still be in Cali, at least. His chest ached and he filled it with cigarette smoke to distract himself.

He could just spin out, right there. The whole mess of his goddamn life could be over.

All the tension building up in him-- the insane wrath that had held Billy captive for so fucking long-- was boiling over. There were tears on his face and his eyes burned. He squeezed the steering wheel, struck with a desperate, wild terror. He wouldn’t be that weak, he couldn’t just wrap himself around a fucking tree, _no_ _way_. He wouldn’t be like…. The thought only added to his anger. He felt like he was going to blow up, tear apart at the seams.

He needed to fight, punch something right where it hurt. His heart pounded with adrenaline and he pulled off the road into a random field.

Billy wrenched open the door and stumbled out of his car. He pulled at his hair with shaking hands, dropped to his knees and drove his fists into the frosty earth until his knuckles would bruise, full of the rabid need to beat something bloody.

He cried and screamed up at the moon like a lone wolf.

Billy wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, but it was long enough for him to start shivering from the cold. His T shirt and jean jacket were hardly sufficient for the temperatures of an October night in Indiana. He didn’t stop screaming, though, not until he was hoarse with the wear and tear on his throat. Not until he was desperate for another cigarette. Not until the frost covered field was suddenly flooded with bright white light.

They were headlights, blinding in the darkness that Billy’s eyes had adjusted to. He squinted over at the shadowy shape of a truck, and then a man.

“Kid?” a gruff voice called out “Hey, Kid-- are you hurt or something?”

Billy raised a hand to shield himself from the light, or maybe to shield himself from the _embarrassment_ of whomever was finding him like this. Footsteps drew in toward him, and the guy seemed to catch on to the headlights thing, because he stepped right in front of them and sheltered Billy from the light using his hulking shadow.

The man looked almost like Neil, by a rough description: dark hair, sharp eyes, tall, facial hair... But, on closer inspection, it was much worse. Much _much_ worse. 

This guy was a fucking cop.

He must have muttered it out loud, getting a huff of a humorless laugh out of the stranger as he said “A _fucking_ _cop_? I’m the _fucking_ _Chief_ to you, Kid.” He took a few more steps, right into Billy’s space, towering over him. “The Christensens rang the station, talking about somebody screaming to wake the devil in one of their fields-- So, what’s happenin’ out here?”

Billy was expecting the hand that the older man tried to put on his shoulder, but he still waited for it, unsure if he was eager for the contact or eager to push it away. The man’s hand was hot on Billy’s frozen skin, even through the thick denim of his jean jacket, and he swatted it off of him with as much anger as he could manage through a wave of exhaustion, growling. He needed to _fight_.

“Whoa there—Jesus, are you _on_ something?” the cop huffed, startled as Billy stumbled to his feet and tried to lunge at him. He felt feral, he felt broken— _God_ , he needed a fucking _smoke_.

He backed away just a couple steps as he got his feet to function again, hands up in mock surrender. He wanted to beat the shit out of this small town asshole, but Billy couldn’t afford that trouble. He couldn’t afford any real trouble or Neil would have his ass. Maybe Billy was turning into his mom, maybe he was crazy, but he wasn’t _stupid_.

“I asked you a question, Kid—“

“I’m not _on_ anything, _Jesus_ …” he rasped, rolling his eyes and trying not to shiver.

He watched the cop as the cop watched him, like he was trying to catch him in a lie. Billy just left his hands up, no matter how much his fingers itched for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.

“Can I go now, _Sir_?” he drawled, injecting as much sarcasm as he could into the words. He could land a solid punch if this guy swung first…

“You new around here?” the cop took a few broad steps closer, and Billy fought the sudden claws of panic in his chest. He reached out, to touch Billy again—and Billy couldn’t give a rational explanation for why he did what he did next.

Shoving the older man’s arm away, he swung right at his face, but the stranger dodged and caught the fist flying toward him. His expression was barely more than annoyed, like Billy was nothing but a fly in his ear. There was a hint of something else there, like _disappointment_. As if he knew _jack_ _shit_ about Billy’s life, as if he had any right to be disappointed in him.  

“Don’t you fucking touch me, _Pig_ —“ Billy hissed, and the Chief spun him around, slamming him down over the hood of the Camaro.

“Look, you little Shit—you’re lucky I’m not booking you for attempted assault. But, I’ve got an appointment to keep tonight, and I’m late, so how about this: you get your act together and drive _safely_ home, and I pretend this never happened. Free pass.” He nearly growled the words in Billy’s ear, and he put up a token fight against the older man’s grip. It was too good a deal, though.

He went limp against the hood, just lying there on the cold metal, like a _bitch_. He swallowed the sudden waves of shame that crashed over him, pushing down his anger until it was replaced with complete exhaustion.  He waited for the cop to let him up.

“What’s your name, Kid?”

Billy stayed silent, jaw set and teeth grinding as he tried to breathe through the shame swallowing him up. He stared the Chief down for a long moment.

“ _Name_ —or I’ll take you down to the station.” He rolled his eyes.

“Billy Hargrove.” He gritted out through his clenched jaw, thinking about how pissed Neil would be if he had to pick him up at the _Police_ _Station_.

He’d be pissed anyway, when Billy got home.

The thought made him shiver, not helped by the cold. The cop noticed.

“It’s awfully cold to be out without a coat, Billy.”

“Can I _go_ now, _Sir_?” he repeated, repressed rage in every syllable.

The cop frowned, brow furrowed as he looked Billy up and down one more time, like he was trying to work something out. Billy didn’t know what he found, but he nodded, looking resigned.

“I’m Chief Jim Hopper, Billy—don’t let this happen again, yeah?”

Billy scoffed, pushing his luck “Yes _Sir_.”

That damn truck followed him all the way back to his house, and Billy barely even broke the speed limit. It was okay—he sure as shit didn’t want to go home. He knew Neil would wait up for him. There was an indescribable feeling crawling under his skin as he pulled in and saw the single light in the window.

He couldn’t do this much longer. Billy was going to explode.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO. I'm getting too excited, you guys, I'm updating too fast, but I LOVE hearing what you think about my story, and in this chapter we FINALLY SEE STEVE. YAY!
> 
> This entire story (most of it, at least) is pining and building tension and rage-- the actual slash won't start for another 7 or 8 chapters! Welcome to my first slow burn fic! I've never had the patience for them before, but for our boy Billy, I'm willing to make an exception. 
> 
> I hope you like it! Let me know in the comments below what you think of the story so far <3 
> 
> **Warning! Brief use of the f-slur in this chapter. Just once, but still. 
> 
> EnJOYYYYYYY!

The silence between the two of them was pretty much normal. Max was too scared to speak, and that was just the way Billy liked her. Whenever Billy was forced to drive Max anywhere, he did his damnedest to maintain just the right level of fear in his stepsister that she wouldn’t get any ideas about them being _friends_ , but she wouldn’t tell Neil or Susan about how he treated her. It wasn’t like Billy didn’t know how much of an asshole he was. He just didn’t really care.

Between the pounding bass of the Camaro’s radio and the knot of anxiety in his chest, it was definitely for the best that Max didn’t try to speak. Billy’s patience was a tightrope at best, and he was already on his second smoke that morning.

It was Monday.

It was his first day of school.

Billy didn’t get _nervous_ about shit like this—he wasn’t some _baby_. He wasn’t like _Max_ , who was squirming in her seat, bouncing her leg. It was just another day, another school, and unlike his stepsister, Billy had done this before. He’d been ripped from his life and thrown into a new place with no connections, and he’d survived.

He’d come out on top in San Francisco, it had been _easy_. Billy had damn good grades, he knew he was hot, and he could brawl with the best of them. He was the _King_ of George Washington High by the time he left. Hawkins High could hardly be more difficult—what could possibly pass as the King of this fucking backwater, anyway?

He wasn’t _nervous_ , it was just a pain in the ass that he had to prove himself again. He’d established himself in San Francisco, he even had one or two friends. Nobody fucked with Billy Hargrove-- he didn’t even have to work for it after a while.

He’d have to do it all over again here, but he _wasn’t_ nervous. He really wasn’t.

 _But_ , he _was_  finishing his third cigarette by the time they careened into the parking lot, nearly taking out a bunch of dopey little freshman as they went. Billy could practically feel Max tense up next to him, about to tell him to watch out. A little vindictive spark lit up in his gut and he smirked to himself.

And then he steeled himself to step out of the car, ready for all the slack jawed and curiously staring masses that the Camaro had attracted. Billy sucked in a deep lungful of smoke, and relished the burn in his chest for a long second before he opened the door.

Hawkins High was impossibly lamer than he thought it would be. The low lying building was dingy and white, with swarms of people going from the parking lot to the doors. They looked pretty normal, considering that Billy was practically expecting them to have missing teeth and wear overalls all the time, but he shook away his surprise to keep a cool look as he made his way to the claustrophobic building.

There were a lot of things that Billy was acutely aware of, making his hackles rise as he walked through the brisk morning and into the halls. The low ceilings, the sour expressions of disdain on the teachers faces, the hideously ugly Tiger mural painted on the brick wall-- they all set Billy into a heightened level of irritation, just bordering on annoyance. Only two things were of any _real_ interest to Billy, though.

First, were the eyes on him. They were _everywhere_.  From every fucking angle, Billy was leered at or studied by _somebody_.

The girls were looking at him like a piece of meat, and he managed to suppress the desire to laugh in their ugly fucking faces until he was sending a sexy little smile to every Jill, Stacey, and Carol that caught his eye. He sized up the guys as he prowled over to his locker, soaking in their jealousy until his confidence felt almost genuine. He could get high off of stares like that, inflating his ego and making the tightness in his chest dissipate just a bit.

The other thing—the most important thing by far—didn’t come until 3rd period. Billy strolled into class, pumped up by the gazes of his new classmates. He even let the nasty old hag of an English teacher do her stupid introduction for him without too much fuss. He didn’t sweat the gang of seniors in the back that were watching like hunters eying prey. He could take them. He barely even noticed them.

It was while standing up there at the front, next to some old bitch that smelled like newspaper and cat food, that he saw something he was hoping he’d never see again.

There was a boy in the back of the room, at the fringes of the senior group by the window, that made Billy’s heart leap embarrassingly in his stupid chest. He swallowed hard around the sudden jerk from his cloud of ego and back to Earth.

He had almost been able to forget who he was while he stood in front of this crowd of strangers. Billy could pretend to be confident and sexy and macho, but _this_ was still all it took to bring him down. He was so weak-- such a _fag_ —that all it took was one boy, with one set of sparkling brown eyes, and one pair of slightly smiling lips… Billy was popped like a goddamn balloon.

He forced his smirk and focused on looking strong as he went to take his seat for class, purposely picking a spot where he couldn’t see _those_ _eyes_. All that confidence felt blatantly manufactured now, with memories of another set of brown eyes flashing through his mind. He could feel something like grief squeeze his heart and lungs as he opened his notebook, not thinking about the boy by the window _or_ the boy he’d left behind.

It was so easy to pretend he was worth something, until suddenly, it just wasn’t. It was damn near _impossible_. 

Billy was so _weak_.

It was hard to shake the feeling that maybe his act was too transparent—maybe they could see that he was queer just by looking at him, just by the sway of his hips in his jeans.

He wanted a smoke. He wanted a _fight_. He could be a man, he could be strong and he could _prove_ it. He spent the whole morning aching for a cigarette and wishing that _someone_ would just _try_ to take a swing at him.

 

* * *

 

Billy didn’t see the boy by the window again, only for a split second in the lunchroom with some curly haired bitch. He was distracted away though, by some guy calling his name.

“Hey California!”

It was one of the asshole seniors from English, and one of the ugly girls that he’d winked at that morning. He had the kind of smile on his freckled face that made Billy’s hand curl into a fist without thought, but he was pointing at the seat across from them in invitation.

Billy tentatively took the offer, looking around for any signs of a trap, but the guy just grinned wider.

“I’m Tommy, this is my girl, Carol.” He chewed with his mouth open. Billy didn’t like baloney sandwiches in the best of circumstances-- seeing one in someone’s mouth had to go up there with the top most disgusting things about Indiana. “What’d you say your name was?”

“Billy.” He stated blandly, itching for a cigarette. He could feel eyes on him, and his stomach flipped at the thought of big brown eyes watching him across the cafeteria.

He forced himself to swallow a godawful tater tot that tasted like sand.

Tommy nodded like he was making some big, grand decision, as if his girlfriend wasn’t making eyes as Billy right over his shoulder.

“You play any sports, Billy?” he finally said, grinning like the idiot that he doubtlessly was “Cus, a guy on our basketball team just left—Coach says we won’t make States this year if we don’t find a damn good replacement. You want in?”

There weren’t a whole lot of things to weigh in this decision. It meant not being home for an extra couple hours a day, not being around Neil or Max or Susan, maybe making friends, getting closer to the top of this fucking pile of shit.

“Yeah, sure.” He nodded, doing his best to make it clear that he was doing this Tommy guy a _favor_ —

The pretty boy on the far side of the lunchroom was whispering into the curly haired girl’s ear, kissing her cheek. She looked almost annoyed as she blushed, but Billy didn’t care.

The heat of rage swooped through his body and up the sides of his face so fast that Billy could only hope that he hadn’t actually turned red. He forced down another couple tater tots.

“I’ll try out for your little team on one condition—who’s in charge around here?”

That only got him a confused, blank stare from the guy, but Carol understood. She smirked, looked him up and down like he was about to go into a boxing ring and she was deciding to place a bet.

“Y’know—who do I need to kick out in order to take the goddamn _throne_?”

That got the stupid smile back on Tommy’s face, his eyes glittering at the idea of taking somebody down. It wasn’t surprising, and Billy already hated him. But, Tommy could be useful.

“The position is pretty open—I guess the guy you’re looking for is Harrington.” Carol chimed in, saying it quietly like it was some big conspiracy “He used to fucking run this school until he shacked up with the fuckin’ princess over there. Left it all behind.”

“More like left _us_ behind.” Tommy growled, his face going a little darker, rolling his eyes.

Tommy clearly had a personal beef with this Harrington guy, and Billy filed it away to be used in the future—he could suffer through a few baloney sandwiches if it gave him a leg up on the competition.

“Okay—so where do I find this Harrington guy?” he asked when a pause settled over the three of them.

“Oh, _King_ _Steve’s_ sucking face with his girl over there, no doubt—“ Tommy sneered spinning in his chair to point at a boy in the corner of the room. His arm was slung around the back of a curly haired girl’s chair, talking intensely now.

He had big brown eyes, thick, dark hair, and full lips that looked like they could turn the prettiest pink if you kissed them long and hard enough.

 _Fuck_.

Billy couldn’t avoid the boy from the back of his English class. He couldn’t stay safely away where no one would get hurt or _killed_ , and Neil wouldn’t make them move again.

Billy smirked, though, not bothering to stifle the little thrill that ran through him as he thought about it—getting up in Steve’s business, poking and prodding and _learning_ all about him. He wanted to get Steve Harrington on his back, and he wanted to grind him into the fucking dirt.

Hawkins, Indiana suddenly got a whole lot more interesting.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we dive into this chapter, I want to put a few things out there:
> 
> First of all, THANK YOU. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your wonderful feedback. You encourage me to keep writing and keep me inspired. Keep up the good work! 
> 
> Second of all, this chapter is on Halloween and most of the dialogue in it is taken directly from the scenes in the show. So, I don't own or profit of this, yada yada yada...
> 
> LASTLY: Let's talk about Billy for a minute. This is a series built on providing reasoning behind Billy's shittiness in S2 and giving him redemption and love. In S2, though, while he was generally an asshole, I only felt like there were two moments where he really let his rage take the front seat-- obviously, the fight with Steve at the end, but also the scene with Max in the car. You know the one I mean. On Halloween, where he almost kills the Party. This chapter takes a deeper look at that scene, and what was going through Billy's mind as he did it. There's a lot of internal struggle-- as we would all expect, the guy's a hot mess-- and the desire to punish himself for being such a big part of why they moved to Hawkins. And then there's the aspect of him punishing Max, because he'd rather blame her then openly admit what he did. 
> 
> He is really dangerous in this chapter, I actually scared myself a little bit while writing it. 
> 
> Please enjoy and let me know what you think! This chapter was hard to write, and I'd love to hear how you interpret that car scene as well!

San Francisco hadn’t been all bad.

Sure, the weather was shit, Max was one thin wall away from him at all fucking times, and he was forced into this new _family_ in this new _place_ , and it fucking sucked. Agent Ramirez had only taken his hope away in that hospital room weeks before his dad started leaving town on “business” for days at a time. His jaw was barely healed by the time he heard Susan’s name for the first time. Mom wasn’t even in the ground for a year before Neil was forcing Billy into the car and up the coast to live with his new _wife_.

Bile still rose in his throat when he thought about it for too long, and he couldn’t totally tell whether it was just leftover bitterness or actual disgust at that disrespect Neil showed toward his mom. He knew he and Susan must have been cheating together for months, long before Mom died. Susan called it his mother’s “ _tragic_ _passing_ ”, as if she knew _anything_ about it. As if Neil wasn’t too angry and embarrassed to admit she had existed at all. Billy would be surprised if Susan even knew his mother’s name.     

There were certain things that he could almost say he _liked_ about San Francisco, though.

He had liked the community—the vibrant, flamboyant queers that reminded him of _home_. He even wrote to Crystal and the girls a few times, telling them all about the sweet pair of brown eyes he met on Market Street.

 _Charlie_.

He had liked the rush that he could feel on the disused stretch of road along the bay. The people he met there were rougher, angry like him. There had been the thrill of tires squealing on the pavement and the smell of rubber in the night air as he floored the gas—Billy had loved racing. The high of winning was almost as good as the high of having those brown eyes looking down from on top of him, feeling his heart race and his freshly kissed lips tingle.

Billy didn’t like to think about San Francisco anymore.

Usually, he could focus his thoughts on now—keeping Neil off his back was a full time job, and the companionship of Tommy H. might be irritating, but it was definitely distracting. There were days where he completely forgot that he’d lost a friend. The days where he realized that he’d forgotten were the days that he couldn’t restrain himself from lashing out. Anyone in his line of sight was in the line of fire.

The tension was building inside him, all around him. School meant watching _King_ _Steve_ smother his girlfriend in the halls, but being home meant hiding with his nose in a book or working out to blow off steam. God knows he hadn’t gotten off in _months_. It only led to the wrong kind of thoughts. He hated to remember the planes of soft dark skin under his hands and the way Charlie had let his hand roam across Billy’s body as if he was _worthy_ of him.

It was Halloween, and Billy was being followed by a ghost.

Maybe if he drove hard enough and fast enough on the backroads of Hawkins, Billy could stop his hands trembling, mind clouded with questions he had no right to ask—about what his friend’s last moments were like, or whether he would still be alive if they’d just been more fucking _careful_. They hadn't even been _boyfriends_ , they hadn't even been in _love_ \-- it was such a _stupid_ fucking thing. It was such a _stupid_ _fucking_ _thing_ to get somebody killed over a casual hookup. 

He drove around most of the early morning, exhausted but unable to sleep. The Camaro's tires squealed like they had at the races, and he felt sick thinking about it. It didn't feel powerful, he didn't feel high off the speed and the open road like usual. He could still see the crime scene photos in his mind-- the tire tracks on the asphalt, the blood slicked across the middle.

Billy was so fucking _weak_. Maybe he could blot out all those weaknesses with Metallica and the roar of the engine.

More than anything, he wanted his mind to shut the fuck up.

At school that day, Steve fucking Harrington seemed to be laughing and smiling around every corner-- inescapably handsome. Billy hated that asshole for the little leap he felt in his chest when he saw that smile. Billy didn’t really know how to feel—not about how Harrington’s perfect hair bounced and fell in his eyes when he surprised Nancy Wheeler at her locker, or how fucking _carefree_ that laugh was. Billy’s knees nearly gave out at the sound of it.

Charlie’s memory was still hanging around in his brain and it only muddied the waters. All that grief, envy, and whatever the Hell else Billy had swimming around in his gut all coagulated into a gigantic knot of _annoyance_.

Tommy had invited him to some stupid party that night. He claimed it would be crawling with bitches looking to get laid, and Billy forced down his emotional shit, pretending that the idea of having some Indiana cow all over him was anything less than repulsive.

Harrington would be there, though. And so would a keg.

So, Billy would be there, if only to lose San Francisco’s shadow in the crowd, and show Harrington what a _real_ _king_ looked like.

 

* * *

 

 

Max was late again.

Billy inhaled on his cigarette until he felt nothing but the buzz of nicotine in his blood, leaning against the Camaro while he picked out her flaming red hair from the crowd.

“You’re late again.”

“Yeah, I had to get catch up homework.” She replied, all casual and grating on Billy’s last fucking nerve.

“ _Jesus_ —I don’t care.” He drawled, purposely matching her careless tone like he wasn’t ready to smash her ugly face into the passenger side door “You’re late again and you’re skating home, Do you hear me?”  

The only answer he got was the slam of the door, and he tossed the butt of his smoke into the asphalt. His knuckles were tight and he stretched his hands, curling them into fists for a second before swinging his own door open.

He gunned the engine and it felt like being back at the drag races by the bay for half a second.

They swerved out of the lot and onto the road. Billy let Ted Nugent’s riffs guide his speed as the country road lay before him and the buzzing energy in his bones ratcheted up with the tempo.

“God, this place is such a shithole…” he muttered, half to himself.

What if they’d never left California? What if Billy had never lost control and gotten Charlie killed? What if Max’s shitty dad hadn’t kept showing up at their door, begging his ex-wife to just _see_ _his_ _daughter_? Fucking _weakness_ \-- that drunken bastard had more to do with Billy being stuck in Hawkins than Charlie’s death did.

“It’s not that bad.” The little twerp actually defended it, her big blue eyes on him with a little too much confidence. A fire started up in his belly, rage clawing into his ribs as he turned his head from the road to stare her down.

“No?” he asked, rolling down her window to let in the October chill and the stench of cows on the breeze “Mmm—Ya smell that, Max? That’s actually shit— _cow_ _shit_.” He spat, holding his nose and letting all that anger build up.

“I don’t see any cows.”

He hated her. Billy fucking hated that little bitch. It was all her fault he was here in the first place. It was her fault that he’d ever been in _San_ _Francisco_ in the first place—Billy wanted to go _home_.

They were pushing 60 miles per hour, and he was needling her just to be an asshole. He wanted to see Max squirm, the fire in his gut reached new heights. His head was nothing but a buzz of adrenaline fueled rage, and he wanted to hear her _say_ _it_.  

“Max…” he singsonged, low and menacing “ _Say_ _it_. SAY IT!” he turned, screaming it in her face and feeding off the fear that came off her in waves.

He shifted gears to really make the Camaro fly, and one thought flashed in his mind like a punch when he heard the engine roar.

 _How fast did those bigoted murderers have to drive to kill Charlie_? 

He swallowed against the sudden nausea, forcing his rage at those assholes on the racing street to merge with his anger at Max. He focused on that rage— _God_ , he couldn’t wait to get drunk later.

Billy pressed the gas harder, hating his stupid brain for thinking about things that weren’t supposed to matter anymore—things he didn’t want to think about.

Max was truly terrified by the time those kids came up in front of the car, biking down the middle of the street in _actual_ _costumes_ like absolute idiots.

“Billy-“

“Do I get bonus points if I get ‘em all in one go?” he seethed, feeling out of control. It was enough just to see the horror in her eyes—it was just enough to send the power to his head like a drug, and just enough for him to hate himself a little more.

He didn’t want to _actually_ hit them, he didn’t plan on it—but he almost wouldn’t be surprised if he fucking did it. He let Max grab the wheel, swerve over the yellow lines and the relief nearly hit him as hard as the adrenaline.

He screamed and whooped to put the fear of God into that little bitch, and sped home.

Later, he added it to the list of things that he never wanted to think about. He felt the suffocating clutch of shame gripping his heart when he was getting ready for Tilly’s stupid party and saw his mom’s pendant glistening on his bare chest. He exhaled a curl of smoke. 

Billy pushed it all down until there was nothing but the buzz of nicotine, wishing for a way out of this vicious cycle.

He left the pendant at home—it screwed up his look.

 

* * *

 

 

Tara’s party was okay, he supposed. It was the epitome of stupid high school parties, nothing to write home about. The weed was a fraction of the good shit they had back in Cali, and the punch in the bowl smelled like it could tranquilize an elephant.  

There was a keg on the back patio, though, and a record to beat. _Harrington’s_ record.  

There was nothing Billy loved quite like beating someone, so he handed Tommy his smoke and gripped the sides of the metal barrel.

By the time the gathered crowd was chanting up to 42, Billy was already edging his way past buzzed and into drunk. The rush of blood to his head made stars pop in his eyes, but Billy refused to stumble. He planted his boots on the concrete and took his cig back from Tommy. He was much less annoying when Billy was drunk, and they hyped up the crowd together.

The cheers lit up Billy’s ego, inflating a balloon in his chest, and he found himself strutting into the crowd of bodies in the house.

Toilet paper hung in streamers down from the balcony upstairs, and sweaty kids stumbled around like they were supposed to be dancing. There must’ve been ten or so of those bitches Tommy had talked about, parting like the red sea for Billy to stride past them, their bedroom eyes looking him up and down.

Billy barely even saw them and he sure as Hell didn’t care about them, not when his target was looking perfectly fucking _edible_ in the corner of the living room.

Steve Harrington looked _good_ in black. His jeans were fucking _tight_ as _Hell_ , and if this was San Francisco, anywhere in the Castro District—if Harrington hadn't been standing with his sourpuss girlfriend like the _straightest_ guy in all of the state of Indiana-- Billy would’ve gotten on his knees right there. From his long legs to those stupid sunglasses, Billy wanted to take him apart. Billy wanted to strip him down and make him cry, slip his own leather jacket around those broad shoulders and show him who _owned_ him—

“Looks like we got ourselves a new keg king, Harrington!” Tommy yelled over the din of the music, and Billy was just a little too drunk to hide the glow in his eyes, drinking in the _King_ of Hawkins.

Something dropped out of him like a false floor when the Ray Bans came off and he was faced with those damn eyes.

He wasn’t listening to Tommy. He didn’t give a shit about Tommy. Blood pounded in his ears, pooling in his hips right where it could coil up tight and hot. Billy’s skin burned, head swimming as he and Harrington locked gazes.

He was drunk, too. Billy could see it in the soft focus of his eyes on him, smile fading to something less. At first glance, it just seemed annoyed, maybe a little ruffled-- Billy grinned like a maniac as he recognized a competitive streak in the set of the brunette's jaw. There was something deeper, though. Something like a shadow of _interest_  there before Tommy opened his stupid fucking mouth.

Before Tommy opened his _stupid_ _fucking_ _mouth_ , there was something _there_. It was a split second of beautiful _heat_ , locking them together in a stand off that felt too personal to be the manly posturing it was supposed to be. Those brown eyes reflected the dim orange light of the party and looked like pools of whiskey. They looked like the California sun, and Billy caught his breath. 

He  _hated_ this guy.  

A spark of something like an electric shock kept them there, staring at each other even after Princess Wheeler walked away with a roll of her eyes.

He knew Steve felt it, too. He saw it when his tongue flicked out to wet his lips, when his gaze flicked from Billy’s eyes to his own mouth.

It was just a moment. There was the quickest moment where he knew that Steve Harrington-- _King_ of Hawkins High, with a reputation as the best fuck in school—was _not_ as straight as he wanted people to think he was.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU for your incredible feedback! As always, you keep this writing engine rolling. 
> 
> Okay, storytime about this chapter: I almost rewrote it. It didn't seem too important, it felt a little more stilted and awkward than the past four, and I didn't want it to look like I was blaming Billy's bad behavior on his self denial and sexual frustration (because I'm not doing that). 
> 
> But, here's the thing: this chapter is about Billy trying to ignore his emotions-- surprise, surprise. This is his internalized homophobia trying to force himself to fuck girls and not masturbate about guys. About Steve, particularly. Because feelings make things complicated, you know? And it's one thing to be comfortable being sexually attracted to a guy, but having romantic feelings about that guy??? After your last partner that you had any even SLIGHTLY romantic feelings for was gruesomely murdered???? Yeah, Billy's fucked up. But, those little facts aren't explicitly stated in the chapter, because Billy doesn't 100% know why he's denying himself. He knows, but he doesn't KNOW, ya know?
> 
> And now that I'm writing this out, I feel way better about this chapter, and I'm glad that I wrote it out. Maybe I'll edit it a little bit later. Regardless, it's super important to me that, if you enjoy this chapter, you leave me a comment and let me know that! Because my feelings about it are fragile. 
> 
> Okay, cool. On with the show-- Enjoy, my Lovelies!  
> **NSFW by the way ;)  
> ***I edited this chapter! I'm way happier with it now. BUT STILL tell me what you think <3

Billy didn’t know her name, but he knew he was drunk enough that it didn’t matter too much. He was drunk enough that he could manage to make some bitch scream and add to his rep at school. Get a high five from Tommy H and the other assholes Billy didn’t know the names of.

It had nothing to do with Harrington, or the blood pounding through Billy’s veins, making the tightness of his jeans unbearable.

He was drunk enough to fuck her in some unoccupied room at that stupid Halloween party as long as he could bend her over. So he could pretend that she didn’t have breasts or soft curves or a face at all. She was just some hole to scratch this itch, and he could pretend she had broad handsome shoulders and big brown eyes.

According to Tommy, Harrington used to get around—and he was good. _Really_ good. Eight thick inches of toe-curling, back-arching pleasure. Apparently, girls bragged about getting it from Steve Harrington. Girls that would usually never admit to being less pure than the Virgin Mother herself would blush and bite their lips, telling the tale of their night with the King.

Billy _wasn’t_ jealous. Not of Harrington, and _definitely_ _not_ of the bitches he’d been fucking.

It was just, if Harrington had a rep for being _good_ , Billy wanted to beat that like his keg stand record. He wanted to beat Harrington. Just because he was queer didn’t mean he didn’t know what to do. He’d had to keep up a rep in Cali, too. It wasn’t actually that hard to get a girl off, as long as you had a little practice.  

She was moaning into the pillow, hands clenched in fists, so he figured he did a good enough job.

 

* * *

 

He’d been out having a smoke in one of the only somewhat quiet places he could find-- ignoring the ache of his blue balls and thinking about blowing off Tommy to go home and shower-- when Harrington went tearing out of the front door like he couldn’t breathe. He was fumbling with his keys. His brown eyes glistened, even from Billy’s shitty angle and through the haze of beer and weed.

Billy grinned like a wolf, wanted to go ask the brunette who had made him pout so prettily, but Steve was in his car and whipping off down the road before Billy had the time to exhale his smoke.

It wasn’t until a day or two had passed that Billy got his first real taste of the Hawkins High rumor mill.

Unsurprisingly, it started with Tommy H, leaning against the gym lockers as the team started filing in for Basketball. Tommy grinned when he spotted Billy, looking too amused for anything good to have happened. Billy wasn’t a _good_ _guy_ , but that freckled bastard was something _else_ entirely.

“Did you hear?” he laughed like Christmas came early, and Billy could barely contain his sneer. He didn’t give a shit, he really didn’t, but Tommy didn’t wait. “Steve and Princess Wheeler broke up.”

Billy sure gave a shit now, his stomach flipping.

He _tried_ not to care. He didn’t want to think about Harrington too much, he'd been consuming his every thought since they locked eyes at the party... Harrington was hot, and it was one thing for Billy to ogle him like _that_ , but something in his jealous little heart seemed to expand at the idea of King Steve, _single_. And that meant Billy wanted _more_ from Harrington-- more than he wanted to admit.

The King himself was over by his locker, a downcast expression on his pretty face, staring at his shoes as he got ready. The bastard was just pulling his shirt over his head as Billy caught a glimpse of him. He pulled his ugly polo off to reveal a creamy expanse of pale skin and lean muscle. He had freckles, too—not like Tommy, but just a light dusting of little dark spots. Billy wanted to count them with his lips and tongue. He wanted to bite the tendon in his neck and see what sound he’d make. There were these two little dips, little dimples just above his ass and if Billy was anybody else, he might call them _cute_ —

The point was that Harrington was pouting like a fucking _baby,_ as if that girl had ever been worth his time.

Billy cleared his throat and ached for a cigarette, trying to shake away the heat pooling low in his belly. The itch to get off—really _get_ _off_ , not fake it with some drunk chick in a dark bedroom—mingled with the weightlessness of knowing Steve Harrington wasn’t under that little bitch’s thumb anymore. Billy bit the inside of his cheek against the tiny spark of hope, squashing it immediately and hoping the warm buzz of arousal would go out with it.

Irritation nipped at his mind when the urge didn’t fade away. It had been too long since he'd gotten laid-- or even just rubbed one out-- and now his body had a constant undercurrent of thrumming energy. It mingled with the rage and the horrible caged feeling in his chest, making him a trembling mess of crossed wires. Was he angry? Did he want to fight? Did he want to fuck? _Jesus_ , he was exhausted. 

Billy, with every muscle tense and hot, forced himself to shove down the tangle of feelings.

For fuck’s sake, he had to  _stop_ looking at _Harrington_.

Hawkins High gym shorts were hardly forgiving. He was lucky Tommy was stupider than his girlfriend and didn’t notice much, including the half hard cock Billy was trying to will away.

“What do I care about Harrington’s love life?” he grumbled, pulling his own shirt off over his head and building the fire in his belly that he needed for practice.

He gave in so fast, unable to avoid getting up in the King's business while he could play it off as some sort of posturing. Billy was drawn in by the other boy like their bones were made of magnets. He poked and prodded Harrington throughout the hours they spent on the court, getting in just close enough to feel the heat of his body—it was so much harder to stay in control of himself while knowing what even _part_ of the skin under that sweaty grey t shirt looked like. Drunk on the feeling, Billy fueled himself with that desire, a manic charge of _want_ in his blood as he shoulder checked Steve to the floor.

A whistle blew somewhere in the cavernous gym, but Billy’s heartbeat was far too loud, making the Coach sound like he was a hundred yards away. Steve Harrington was spread on his back, sweaty and ruffled, his hair sticking out in wild tufts. It satisfied something deep inside Billy’s core to see those eyes looking up at him, all indignant like that, but it wasn’t quite enough. He was _waiting_ —he was waiting for a real fucking _fight_ , he wanted to see Harrington _care_.

 _C’mon, get up!_ He wanted to yell _Defend yourself!_

He bent down, amazed at how immediately Steve took the hand he offered him. He was so fucking naïve, so _trusting_. Billy wanted to suck and bite his way into Harrington’s most private places—but he settled for gripping his hand, staring into those goddamn eyes, and growling low.

“You were moving your feet. Next time, plant them— _draw_ a _charge_.”

He could smell the hairspray and shampoo on him. He could smell his expensive, yuppie cologne, and he _hated_ him. He didn’t look back after shoving the other boy into the hardwood, his gut swirling with the _smell_ of Steve Harrington and what he looked like gazing up at Billy from the ground.

Billy still tingled from head to toe, buzzing with adrenaline that felt less like his narrowly controlled rage and more like insurmountable desire the longer he spent with his eyes on Harrington. Impatience crawled around under his skin, and Billy bit the inside of his cheek against the all-too-appealing idea of picking a fight.

When he first started out for the throne in Hawkins, Billy had expected to actually have a little competition.

He had expected Steve to actually give a shit, but all that guy did was roll his eyes or spit out some exasperated remark.

Billy’s entire body was restless, down to his bones. He wanted to _fight_ , to have somebody push back for once in his _goddamn_ _life_. He wanted King Steve to call him on his bluff, to actually see whether Billy would throw the first punch or acknowledge his neglected moral compass. If he was honest, Billy himself usually didn't even know what he was going to do-- not until he did it, and he couldn't take it back. 

No one ever _fought_ _back_. Only Neil ever took him to task, and that was Billy’s turn to surrender. He could talk a big game, but he knew what his dad would do, he didn’t need to take the gamble. Sometimes, Billy opened his mouth to talk and heard his dad in his own voice.

Billy needed someone to show him who he was after all these years of anger—because he didn’t actually know for sure, anymore.

He clenched his fists and stretched his hands on his way to the showers, a thrill buzzing in his mind at the idea of Steve Harrington trying to throw a punch, showing what had made him the King in the first place.

He told himself that he was a hunter, that he was observing his prey before the inevitable kill—and _boy_ , did he want to sink his teeth in. But, what was left of his self-control dwindled dangerously as he took the shower head directly next to a completely naked Steve Harrington. He felt like Icarus, biting off more than he could chew, getting too close to something _too_ _fucking_ _hot_ to touch. 

Maybe Billy let his eyes linger as the steam started to rise around them, but he told himself that that was just posturing, too. 

He told himself that he just wanted to freak him out, put Harrington off his game in every way he fucking could. He felt heat in the base of his spine at the idea of bringing the King to his knees, making him crumble.

Billy didn’t just want the crown, he wanted to _earn_ it. But first, he had to nudge Steve to the edge.

“Don’t sweat it Harrington.” He said, keeping a cool gaze on the other boy’s downcast expression. Billy kept his voice as relaxed as possible, not betraying how suddenly dry his throat was while taking in all those miles of wet skin and muscle.

He finally took a look, then, at the prize of every girl who bragged about _The_ _King_.  

 _Eight_ _inches_. Yeah, _sure_. Tommy hadn’t done it justice—Billy barely caught a glance, sure that he wouldn’t be able to prevent himself from falling to his knees right fucking there on the tile floor if he let his eyes linger too much.

“Today’s just not your day, Man.” He forced himself to breathe as he said it, locking his eyes on Harrington’s face and _only_ his face.

Droplets of water were caught on the brunette's eyelashes. He was such a pretty, _pretty_ boy.

Billy nearly purred when Steve got himself fully under the spray, wetting his dark hair and pretending not to hear him. Some of that impatience turned into anger, heating up in Billy’s cheeks—of fucking _course_ he was ignoring him. Steve Harrington the Pacifist would obviously rather ignore Billy then _fight_ _back_.

All he wanted was for him to _care_.

Tommy cut in, egging him on with his crazy grin, and the tension finally started to build. Billy _could_ get him there, he could make him fight—Steve had gone rigid at the mention of Nancy Wheeler. A little green monster growled in the back of Billy's mind-- at least _something_ could get through to him, but did it _have_ to be _her_? Billy didn’t even try to hide the roll of his eyes.

She had never even _deserved_ him-- of all the things to get him going, it had to be _her_ and some other guy sneaking off. The flash of envy shot into Billy’s veins like a drug, and he exhaled with a little huff, turning off his water.

He twisted around to grab his towel, and couldn’t help but steal another helpless look between the brunette’s legs.  

 _Jesus_ , that other guy must have _two_ _dicks_ , or something—all the other bitches at this stupid school could talk about nothing but Steve Harrington. Nancy Wheeler had had all “ _eight_ _inches_ ” of the guy for a whole year, and she blew him off?

Wasn’t she supposed to be _smart_?

He barely noticed Tommy go, but something loosened in his chest once he had. Once it was just him and Steve, naked in the steamed up room, and Billy felt compelled to say something.

There was this horrible, betrayed look in those brown eyes, looking at the tiled floor as he soaped down his hair, and it made Billy feel strangely hollow.

“Don’t take it too hard, Man.” He heard himself say, even while part of his brain was screaming at him that this was his chance to rile him up more, make him want _the_ _fight_. But Billy ignored it, swallowing all his pent up rage, impatience, and frustration for _just_ a _moment_. Billy just wanted to see the other boy’s eyes gleam again like they had at the party. He wanted that spark between them so badly, he’d do _anything_  “Pretty boy like you’s got nothing to worry about. Plenty of bitches in the sea.”

That green monster suddenly roared, sending fire through every part of him, because he hadn't realized just how  _right_  he was. There were plenty of sluts in the Halls of Hawkins, and they all wanted Harrington. They all wanted his money, and his smile, and his eyes on them—they wanted to ride that _dick_. And now, they actually stood a chance. They stood more of a chance than Billy, no matter how many _electric_ moments they had when they were drunk.

He had to get out of here, his bones aching with the restless energy that still lingered from when he’d counted Harrington’s freckles, and when he’d pushed him to the ground and made him stare him in the eye. _Look_ _at_ _me_ , he begged Steve internally, an addictive pull in his gut like there was when he needed a cigarette—but he knew what he needed this time, and it wasn’t a smoke.

_Look at me!_

It wasn’t really intimidating or threatening when he twisted the tap on Steve’s shower head. It was more to annoy him, to get under his skin. He had to get those sad brown eyes back on his for just a second or two, even if they came with a set jaw and a huff of irritation.

That was almost just as good. He wished that Harrington would give him a shove into the tile behind him, press him between his warm body and the cold wall.

Instead, he smirked, soaking up the energy of the moment before he slapped Steve on the shoulder. Billy strode away with his towel in hand, his tanned ass still on display for Harrington alone.

He felt those eyes on him until he turned the corner, hot and bothered and lucky that he was the only person left to change.  

 

* * *

 

 

Billy did everything he could to keep himself from _doing_ _it_.

He snapped at Max in the car. Then, he lifted weights for nearly a fucking hour, rendering his earlier shower useless. When he could still feel that electric charge in his muscles, he tied up his beat up sneakers and ran as hard as he could, heart hammering in his chest.

The tingling warmth that Harrington had left running up and down his spine and into his hips was still there, varying between a mild irritation and a _painful_ hard on that Billy nearly cried at the very idea of touching.

Neil was out of town, in Chicago for work. Susan wouldn’t be home until seven or eight, and Max was in her room as far as Billy knew.

For all intents and purposes, he was home alone. He could just rub it out, try not to think too hard about how Steve had gripped his hand on the court that day, or the fucking _third_ _leg_ he saw in the showers, or those eyes that seemed to look right through him. He _could_ , technically, just get it over with, but he _couldn’t_.

He tried to drown it out with music. He took a long, _cold_ shower, and went to bed early.

The heavy warmth in the cradle of his hips had faded some by the time he finally crawled into bed, and he thought he’d won.

But, he couldn’t _not_ do it.

_In the dream, they were back in the showers, just the two of them. Tommy was finally gone, the steam was rising between them, and Billy said it._

_“A pretty boy like you’s got nothing to worry about.”_

_And, this time, Steve looked up. His eyes were hot and bright, like they had been at the Halloween party, before Nancy Wheeler took the light out of them._

_Steve looked at him with that intense gaze and a slight smile tilting his lips, and he said “What would you know about pretty boys like me, Hargrove?”_

_His heart was in his throat, blood pounding southward as Steve gripped his wrist and pulled him close under the spray of his shower head. Billy had no words to say, his mouth was dry as he battled with his last two brain cells to think of a rebuttal, but it was too late._

_Too late to run away from the inevitable and too late to think of a witty remark, because Steve’s soft pink lips were firmly pressed to his. He nipped and bit, licking into his mouth, and Billy melted like an absolute pussy about it._

_As his knees went weak, Steve pushed their bodies flush to hold him up, wedging one of his pale thighs between Billy’s. The new friction on his painfully aching cock was too much, making Billy whimper in a way that he’d never admit to, not even in a dream._

_He could die like this. He could fucking die like this, with King Steve between his legs, twining his fingers through his dark, wet hair, tugging it until the other boy moaned against his mouth. They kissed like they were fighting._

_Steve’s cock was impossibly more beautiful when it was hard and leaking between their hips, and that emptiness Billy had been left with for the months that he’d been denying himself was more unbearable that it had ever been-- Steve pressed his teeth against Billy's pulse, hammering in his throat, had turned his whole body to quivering jelly. They rocked together, cursing under their breath, and screw electricity, there were fireworks bursting behind Billy’s eyes. A liquid heat unlike anything he’d ever felt—pure lust, desperation, and something else indescribable—flowed through his veins._

_Harrington was hooking Billy’s thighs around his hips, propped against the cold tile of the shower wall. Water came down their bodies in rivulets, and Billy was exposed to Steve Harrington’s deep brown gaze._

_He didn’t feel afraid, though, when he let Steve in._

He woke with a full body shudder, thighs quaking, and a choked off moan that seemed far too loud in the black silence of his house.

The clock glowed: 3:46 AM.

The old sheets tangled around his legs were constraining and hot, and he kicked them all away as the aching tent in his pajamas seemed to pulse with all the blood that should have been going to his brain—he’d gone too long without relief. He wanted to _fuck_ , to really feel somebody in every fucking facet of his being—he wanted to be _filled_.

He’d never wrapped his hand around his dick and felt this type intensity before. Not for any of the boys he’d messed around with, not with Charlie, and definitely not with some Midwestern whore at a Halloween party. Billy wanted Steve Harrington to fuck him with that gorgeous cock. He wanted to rough him up and kiss to claim, leaving dark purple marks where Princess Wheeler could get scandalized by them.

His heart pounded, he bit down on the hand he was using to cover his mouth, just to keep from moaning loud enough for Harrington himself to fucking know it on the other side of town.      

His strokes were mean and fast, almost too tight, making his puffs of breath sound ragged in the quiet room. He wasn’t doing it to savor it, he didn’t want to enjoy it—this was worse than he could’ve ever imagined.

Because, Billy didn’t _just_ want the cock, or to hurt Nancy Wheeler, or to prove that King Steve was as queer as he thought… He wanted those eyes on him, and those strong hands to grip his hips, and to make those lips laugh that carefree laugh. He didn’t ever want to be the reason that Steve looked sad like he had that day. He wanted to _kiss_ and _fuck_ and hold Steve Harrington like a real… he didn’t know. 

He wanted it to be _real_.

He didn't just want King Steve to care that Billy was encroaching on his title. He wanted Steve to _care_. About _Billy_. 

Billy had an actual _crush_ on Steve Harrington.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER 6! WE'RE HALFWAY THROUGH PART 1, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???? 
> 
> Thank you so much for your continuing support, your comments are my FAVORITE THING. Thank you thank you thank you!!! 
> 
> Okay, the chapter. So, Billy is struggling, what's new, right? Well, this chapter is light on the harringrove, but we get some of Steve's perspective! YAY! It was so fun to write-- writing Billy all the time can be really tiring. There will be more Steve in the future, too, so you can look forward to that. There's also only a few more chapters until THEY PULL THEIR HEADS OUT OF THEIR ASSES! I can't wait-- honestly, slow burns are exhausting, I need some serious drunk makeouts. STAT. 
> 
> I did my best reconciling the "Billy is a racist" situation, because my characterization of him is NOT. I didn't make it a big part of the story because it's not going to be a huge thing in the future. It'll come up a couple more times in this and Part 2, but it's nothing groundbreaking. 
> 
> As always, enjoy and let me know what you think!!!! REALLY. PLEASE COMMENT. Thanks. 
> 
> **Brace yourself for a little racism talk, I guess. And one F-slur.

Senior year fucking blows and Steve would shout it from the rooftops if he could.

He was flunking English, and even the guidance counselors were trying to break it to him gently that he wouldn’t graduate if he couldn’t get it together.

Coach was pissed. He kept threatening to bench Steve if he couldn’t get a handle on his pass attempts and actually score a fucking point. And that was pretty fucking annoying because of all the things he was bad at, Steve was _good_ at basketball. At least, he used to be.

Which brought him to _Hargrove_ —Billy _fucking_ Hargrove. Steve had no clue what he’d done to the guy behinds existing in his general vicinity, but it felt like everywhere he went, Hargrove was watching. He was in the halls, and in his classes, and in his fucking _shower_ , and Steve would feel his gaze on him every day, like he was trying to burn him up with just his will power.

It made Steve feel… _warm_. Billy’s eyes were intense and blue, his hair was wild and blonde, and there was something _so_ … Steve didn’t have a word for it, but Billy was _a_ _lot_ to handle. He was electric—like grabbing a lightning rod out of a storm.

He was dangerous. Steve felt hunted, or maybe _studied_. It left a solid pit of some indescribable feeling deep in his gut, and Steve wasn’t sure if he was repelled or… _attracted_.  

That wasn’t important now, though.

He fucking _broke_ _up_ with _Nancy_ \-- his high school sweetheart, maybe the _love_ of his _life_. He hated it, he felt like he was _missing_ _something_ every fucking _minute_. Steve knew he wasn’t too smart, but what had he missed? Did he miss the signs? Did she try to tell him, but just gave up when he was too stupid to catch a hint? They spent a full year of their lives together…. He loved her.

Steve had never loved anyone before, and she’d been _lying_.

Looking back on his family, on the friends that ditched him after he gave up the “throne”, on Nancy Wheeler and her past full of monsters—Steve was starting to wonder if he’d ever be worth somebody’s time.

 It wasn’t like he didn’t _have_ friends. He hung out with people at parties, and there were already girls trying to talk to him, but he didn’t _want_ to talk to them! He wanted to see Nancy—actually, yeah, that was exactly what he was going to do.

He’d… he’d bring her flowers and they’d talk this out, and it was going to be _fine_.

He grabbed his jacket and his keys. He didn’t even tell his mom where he was going before he left—she probably hadn’t even realized he was home in the first place, so it didn’t really make a difference.

Steve took his time getting to the supermarket on the main road, his throat tight and stomach doing flips. What was he even going to say? _I’m_ _sorry_?

He supposed it was a start.

 _Red roses are the most special_ , he thought, _the most romantic-- right?_

His palms were damp with sweat when he grabbed the one dozen bouquet off the shelf. It didn’t feel right, but he just gripped the stems tighter. Nothing felt _right_ then, and that wasn’t because they were the _wrong_ _flowers_ , or because Nancy had lied and _maybe_ that should just be the end of it—it was just Steve’s constant barrage of nerves. He was just jumpy, at least, that was what his mom said.

He was making the right choice for _once_.

He had to get her back. Once they were back together, everything would be okay again.

 Steve was about to cash out when he saw a small vase of single sale flowers. They were a little trampled, just filler, garnish flowers for full bouquets, probably, but it was one of those things that conjured a memory.

He bought his roses and left the tiny flowers behind with his head in a fog.

When he was too young to be by himself for the long summer months, but his parents didn’t want to have him around, they sent him to a sleep away camp. It was a _fancy_ one—Dad had called it “ _the_ _best_ _money_ _could_ _buy_ ”, when they were about to send him off for the first time. As if that made it better that they didn’t want to keep Steve with _them_.

He had been ten years old the first time, and every summer for three years they sent him back. He actually liked it—sailing and fishing and racing around the woods with other kids his age was a better summer than he would have had with John and Ellen Harrington. 

It was on a nature preserve somewhere outside of Chicago, and the banks of the creeks that fed into the lake had been full of those filler flowers. Steve hadn’t thought about it in years-- for a fucking _reason_.  

The first time he kissed a boy was down by the banks of one of those creeks—Steve Harrington and Connor McCleary. They were thirteen years old when they’d been separated from the rest of their hiking group, and ended up taking the creek south toward camp.

The sun had been high when they stopped for water and rest, and Steve couldn’t remember how _it_ happened. His heart had been hammering out of his chest, when their lips pressed together he felt warm from his head to his toes. The summer day was hot all right, but Connor McCleary had _kissed_ him. The first one was quick and clumsy, but after that Steve cupped the other boy’s pale Irish cheeks and tried to do it like he saw in the movies. And, _man_ , the sparks were just… like _electricity_.  

It was the last year he could go back to that camp—he aged out, and John and Ellen deemed him “ _mature_ ” enough to be home alone all summer.

He never saw Connor again. Steve couldn’t quite remember, but he thought the other boy lived somewhere in Michigan.

That kiss has sent his chest  fluttering, lit a fire in his belly he hadn’t known he could feel—not for a boy, at least. Steve had hoarded his mother’s Cosmopolitans and Vanity Fairs after that, flipping through page after page so he could rip out the Calvin Klein underwear ads. Just to feel that flutter again.

After that, he’d gone from girl to girl—and they were great, they were _fine_ — but he couldn’t admit that he was trying to bury those ads under his mattress and the feeling that came with them.

None of those girls had ever been satisfying, though—not until Nancy. She made him forget everyone and everything else….

He was torn from his reverie when he turned off his engine to find that muscle memory had brought him right to the Wheelers front door. He nearly crushed the roses in his nervous grip. He’d wasted all that time thinking about a boy from a million years ago, when he had no clue how to apologize to Nancy.

“Okay, _okayokayokay_ …” he muttered, talking to his dashboard before steeling himself to get out of the Beemer and put one foot in front of the other “I love you, I-I’m sorry, I— _wait_ a _minute_ , what the hell am I _sorry_ for--?” he rehearsed, a big lump of anxiety sitting in his throat as the door got closer.

“Steve!”

He wasn’t surprised to see Henderson there—all of Mike’s dweeby little friends practically lived there—but he was surprised about what the Hell Dustin Henderson was doing talking to _him_. They’d never spoken, not once.

“Are those for Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler?” he asked, and for a second Steve had forgotten about the roses in his hand. He looked down and then back up at Dustin.

“No?” He phrased it as a question, dripping sarcasm, because why the _fuck_ would he have roses for his girlfriend’s _parents_?

“Good.” The little shit nodded, snatching the bouquet out of his hand and striding away to the Beemer like Steve was some kind of taxi service. “Nancy isn’t home.” He explained over Steve’s indignant shout.

But, then he stopped when he registered the words. _Nancy wasn’t home_.

Nancy hadn’t been at school either.

Doubt strangled his heart for a second, hearing Tommy’s mocking laughter reverberating in his head like it had when he broke the news. The news that Nancy and Jonathan had skipped—was she still with him?

Had Steve really meant that little to her?

“Doesn’t matter—“ Dustin bitched “We have bigger problems than your love life. D’you still have that bat?”

“ _Bat_? What bat?” he replied, mostly to be an asshole. Of _course_ he had the fucking bat—the weapon he’d used on the night his entire perception of reality had shifted? He kept it in his room, under his bed.

After all, Barb had _died_ in his fucking _yard_. If there was anything still out there in the woods behind his house, Steve wasn’t taking chances.

But, oh yeah—he forgot, _he doesn’t care about Barb, because he’s bullshit_ —

“ _Steve_!” Dustin cried “The bat! The one with all the nails?”

“Why?” What could this _twelve_ year old actually be in need of a lethal weapon for? What the fuck?

“I’ll explain on the way.” And without any more preamble, Dustin Henderson just helped himself to Steve’s car.

“Wait— _now_?”

“ _Yes_ now—get in!”

Steve had a sinking feeling that everything was turning upside down all over again.

 

* * *

 

Billy had an envelope full of things he had to hide. He kept it on the bottom of his bookshelf sandwiched in the pages of The Return of the King, where Neil would never think to look, Max’s curious little hands couldn’t find it, and Susan wouldn’t learn too much on one of her escapades to “ _understand_ ” him.

Billy only kept the things that he couldn’t stand the idea of burning—like the only picture taken of him and Charlie, at some party on Market Street. It was just a little Polaroid, and he didn’t really know if he kept it out of guilt or genuine affection. He hadn’t ever loved Charlie, but, as much as Billy tried to do the contrary, he didn’t actually want to forget the handsome black boy.

He had been funny. He liked good music and the thrill of a fast car. He was a good friend.

Billy also kept his letters there, each meticulously folded and creased. The one at the very back was from his mom, and he just _didn’t_ look at that one. He just couldn’t stand it—he already kept her pendant, and that was more than enough to keep him thinking about her every day. There were just some things that were better left unwritten and unread.

It caused more harm than good to read what she had said.

The other letters were advice, happy and sad memories of the people he missed from home—his _real_ home. 

Billy had stumbled onto the “wrong side” of town while riding his bike home from school. He was about twelve, lost and confused, when he crashed his bike and took his scraped knees to the nearest building. He just wanted to use their telephone.

Even when it wasn’t open yet, only populated by three or four employees, The Angle was the most incredible place he’d ever set foot in—the neon lights, the black painted wood, the sequins sewn into the sheer curtains separating the stage from the bar. But, it was the people inside—people that had expected just about anything but a _little_ _boy_ to walk in their door—that caught his eye.

They were definitely men, definitely wearing makeup, and _definitely_ beautiful. Billy didn’t know men could do that.

After that, he started coming back day after day only for them to kick him out. Finally, though, the one in blue stopped trying to usher him out the door. He saw the bruises on Billy, and brought him into the kitchen for a sandwich.  The rest was history.

He told his mom and dad that he had joined a club. Then he’d take his bike, and ride all the way to the “wrong side” of town. He wanted to see Hughie, Ricardo, and Paul. He learned their stage names, and listened to their stories. Billy learned what it was to feel _safe_ , and how to speak Spanish. He learned what drugs he should _never_ do—he learned how to make a fucking _omelette_ in their tiny bar kitchen. He learned what it was to be _himself_ \-- to be _queer_ \-- while sitting next to Ricky’s mirror, watching him apply a few swipes of lipstick.

When Charlie died, Billy stopped writing to them. To his girls. The day that the police came and spread those crime scene photos across his kitchen table, Billy had sent them one last note with shaking hands. He told them to never write to him again, to never talk to him, never look for him—he _hated_ them. He didn’t know where he’d gone so wrong—if it was being gay that got him into this fucking _mess_ of a life, if it was his mom’s death, his dad, or if it was _them_. They had encouraged him, let him sink deeper into this false sense of security, let him be proud of who he was as if it wasn’t a dark and horrible world outside The Angle.

 He didn’t know what to do once his sexuality got someone killed.

Billy wasn’t sure whether it was purely boredom, the itch to smoke when his last pack was empty, or the terrifyingly soft part of his heart where Steve Harrington’s smile currently resided, but Billy found himself sitting on the corner of his bed with his battered copy of The Return of the King in his hands. He flipped through pages until the slight bulge of the envelope could be seen, and ran his fingers down the frayed crease of it. For the first time in months of tumultuous rage, he found his mind clear enough to miss his family.

Maybe he should write.

“ _Bill_!”

He snapped the book shut with a thud as his dad’s voice cut through the sunny haze of memories, ripping him out of the past and into his bedroom in Indiana. Into the present, where Billy was all alone, surrounded by blood and burnt bridges.

Taking a steadying breath, Billy clenched his muscles and stretched his hands, wishing for a cigarette as he followed Neil’s voice out into the kitchen.

When entering a room with Neil Hargrove, Billy did three things. The first was to shove down the wave of anxious energy and the tangle of anger that it dragged with it. He tried to clear his mind, tried not to snap under the suffocating pressure of the air between them.

The second was to analyze Neil’s position, both where he was in the room and what the tension of his pose was. Right then, sitting at the kitchen table with the paper open in his hands, Billy could tell Neil was too wound up to actually be reading it. It was a trap to lull Billy into thinking that he wasn’t at the heart of the dad’s attention. He was just waiting for the eye roll or exasperated sigh-- he wanted _any_ _reason at all_ to make this interaction more than it had to be.

It was a test of his _respect_ _and_ _responsibility_.

 _More like my obedience_ , he thought, the repressed rage building in his gut. Billy weighed the option of being contrary of whatever Neil asked, just for the sake of it, in spite of the beating he might get.  

“What?” he said, an undercurrent of dangerous emotions leaking into his monotone.

“Where’s your sister?”

A spike of new annoyance pumped into his veins, because Billy _didn’t_ _have_ _a_ _sister_. He swallowed around the bile in his throat before saying “ _Maxine’s_ at her little club for another half an hour.”

“Hm.” Neil nodded, pretending to finish a page of the paper and unfolding a new one. The crinkle and crack of the page snapped on Billy’s nerves like rubberbands. “And what club is this?”

How the Hell was Billy supposed to know that?

“Shouldn’t you be asking her that?”

He looked up at him over the lip of the paper, and Billy knew he was on thin fucking ice. He breathed, desperate for a _goddamn_ _smoke_.

“I’m asking you, Bill. I want to hear it from you.” Neil finally broke the heavy silence, his voice so cool and calm as he gave up on the stupid paper and folded it up loudly. He kept his icy gaze on Billy for every moment, and he felt like his dad had actually frozen him to the spot.

“I-I don’t know.”  

Neil nodded again, slow and methodical as if he just _knew_ it. As if Billy had disappointed him yet again. He stood from the table, sending Billy’s fight or flight response into overdrive, his hands trembling until it was all he could do to curl them into fists.

Neil stopped about a foot away from him, arms crossed and eyes locked on Billy’s, watching him squirm.

“You don’t know? We’ve talked about this, Billy— _who_ is Maxine?”

He knew what he had to say, but choked on the words with the angry wave in his throat, bubbling out of him.

“ _Bill_.”

“She’s my _sister_.” He hissed.

Neil smiled like a shark—all teeth and power. Neil was the kind of man who could smell blood in the water when his son was around.

“And _what_ is your sister?”  

Billy’s nails dug into his palms, unable to breathe through the lump of tangled angst and fear blocking his lungs.

“My responsibility.”

“Good—was that so hard?” he simpered, taking one step into Billy’s space.

The urge to step away was nearly overwhelming, and Billy planted his feet on the floor as firmly as he could.

He wasn’t _weak_.

“I expect you to be responsible, Son. You watch out for your sister—it’s your _job_.” He clapped him on the shoulder with too much force to be anything but a threat “Now, go get her.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sitting in the parking lot between the middle and high school, waiting for Max, had become a solid chunk of Billy’s time. He did it every day that he didn’t have Basketball, waiting for her to get out of her little club. It was never his favorite thing to do, but that day had become unbearable.

He was early, just desperate to get away from Neil. His nervous energy and adrenaline wouldn’t let him sit still in the Camaro, and he had barely put it in park before hurling the door open. Breathing in his first lungful of his fresh pack of smokes, he leaned against the blue metal, relishing the burn in his lungs. It loosened his wire-tight muscles just a little, but the rage still sat heavily on his chest, growling as he fed into the feeling.

Max had no fucking clue all the shit Billy did for her. All the punches he’d taken because of her entitled bullshit—and now was he supposed to, _what_? Ask her about her fucking day? As if everything she did didn’t put Billy in deeper with Neil and Susan?

He picked her flaming red hair out of the crowd of kids getting out of other extracurricular things, but there was something different today. There was something _off_ , and alarm bells rang in his head.

Max was pissed, yelling at some black boy in the school yard. He looked incredulous, like he didn’t know what to say.

Either way, Max was storming off toward the Camaro in a flash of hair and freckles, leaving the boy calling out after her while Billy stared him down.

His heart was in his throat, hammering away with the same terror he’d felt with Neil’s predatory grin on him. Glowering at the kid, flashes of worst case scenarios flew through his mind.

Maybe it was the ghost of Charlie mingling with the fear and rage in Billy’s heart, loudly announcing that whatever was happening _couldn’t_ _end_ _well_. Or, maybe it was just because Max looked so fucking hurt by whatever that little twerp had said, and Billy wanted to _know_ what he said.  

No matter what it was, one thing trumped all the others.

Neil Hargrove hated “ _those types of people_ ”. He said it with such disdain while he watched the news, read the paper, and while he bitched about that one coworker that never did anything right.

The idea of Max having _anything_ to do with this kid—friend, enemy, whatever the _fuck_ it was—did not bode well for Billy. If Neil found out a single thing, he might actually _hurt_ Max. He’d definitely give Billy a beating that would make the Hawkins High rumor mill spin. He’d berate him about _responsibility_ , not being there for his _sister_ , about how “ _those types of people_ ” were unacceptable for Max in _any_ capacity.

Billy would never hear the end of it. The beatings would get worse. The tension would be _unbearable_.

He lit a cigarette when Max finally got in and slammed the door, pouting.

He didn’t mean to make her fucking _cry_ —he didn’t even mean to grab her, not really. He just, kind of, did it. She was being such an _evasive_ little asshole, as if he wasn’t trying to help the both of them. He didn’t think she’d be such a baby about it. It wasn’t like he _cared_ that he made her cry, though.  She wasn’t actually his _sister_ or anything. She was just his responsibility, and if Billy didn’t pay some fucking attention to that responsibility, he’d be the one getting his ass handed to him.

Besides, he’d rather the little bitch think he was some racist scumbag than know the truth—that he was actually just a weak little _faggot_ , scared of his own fucking father.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR THE LOVE!!! As always, I LIVE for your comments and feedback so PLEASE let me know what you think!
> 
> This chapter was weird, but not for any particularly avoidable reason. It's just a little filler chapter to establish some feelings between our boys, and set up the FIGHT-- next CHAPTER! I'm so excited to write all that for you! 
> 
> So, here ya go-- have 2,000 something words of angsty, pining boys. 
> 
> Enjoy <3

Steve Harrington liked to sit inside Billy’s head, haunting his thoughts with _those_ _eyes_ on him. The liquid pools of whiskey brown in the orange light of a party, or the intense indignant gaze with his back pressed to the gym floor, even the betrayal and disappointment of Tommy jabbing at him about his fucking break up—Billy was being followed long after the school days were over, all the way home and into every night.

The pressure of forbidden arousal was collecting again, like rainwater against a levy, untreated and ignored. It mingled and swirled in his gut, hot and dangerous, with the rest of the tension in the Hargrove-Mayfield house. Billy’s blood was hot, pounding in his ears and thrumming through his veins like a leaky battery, charging him with poison.

He hated Neil, and Susan, and _Maxine_ —they kept him locked away, caged in the fucking _crucible_ of this town and this goddamn _house_ … He _hated_ Steve Harrington more, though. Billy had told it to himself every day since _that_ night. That night with the dream, and those eyes, and Billy’s fucking _weakness_. Harrington had made everything so much more complicated, getting his strong grip around Billy’s heart and squeezing with his disappointed gaze and his _infuriating apathy_.

Billy wanted to _fight_ —he wanted to feel Steve’s hands on him again, even if it was a punch square in the fucking face. Billy wanted to feel that thrill. He needed to experience just how strong Harrington could be, just how much of a _King_ he was.

He grabbed a beer after he got back from that smelly arcade. He couldn’t stand the pressure building in his gut, he didn’t care that Neil would probably count the cans in the fridge when he got back from work. Maybe it was about time that the two of them battled it out again-- at least it might satisfy some of the tightness in Billy’s muscles, urging him to swing his fists as hard as he could.

Max had slammed her way into her room the second that they were home, she barely even looked at him. If he gave a shit, Billy would tell her she was acting weird.

Instead—because he definitely _didn’t_ give a shit, as long as it wouldn’t make its way back to Neil—he took a long pull on his drink, and turned on MTV.

Technically, the bench and weights in the den belonged to Neil. Lifting was a habit he had brought back from Vietnam when Billy was little, but he’d been training his son on them since he was old enough not to get crushed under the metal plates. Looking back, Billy could only guess that it was his dad’s way of trying to make Billy less of a _pussy_ —Neil must’ve seen that something was wrong with him, even all those years ago, and sought out to _fix him_.

He let the music rumble, shaking the floor under his sneakers as he lifted on the bar, drowning out all thoughts of his dad, and his _responsibility_ , and Steve _fucking_ Harrington.

The doorbell barely made it through the din the first time, and Billy didn’t quite hear it.

The second time, though, his focus was too thrown for him to ignore it. There was barely any time at all before a fucking third little ding snapped against his fraying nerves and Billy hefted himself up from the bench with a shout “Max, are you getting that or what?!”

“ _Okay_!” he heard her shrill reply from her closed door. There was a burst of anger surging up his throat, then, and he swallowed it with a mouthful of beer, pushing it down and putting that wrathful energy into his reps.

It wasn’t until he heard the door close—with his stepsister putting the wood between herself and Billy—that he started to think that something was _really_ going on.

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew Lucas Sinclair had been at the arcade. He’d seen him in his rearview mirror. Now Max was acting weird, and the doorbell was ringing, and Billy had the acutely irritating feeling that he was being left in the dark.

He dropped his weights on the bar with a resounding clang, but Billy wasn’t paying attention anymore. Turning his gaze to the closed front door, he lit a cigarette, stepping on the parts of the floor that wouldn’t creak as he prowled over.

Max practically hurled herself back in a moment later, clearly in some kind of hurry.

So, Billy put out his arm on the mantle, blocking her path as he took a drag on his cigarette.

“Who the Hell were you talking to?” he growled, letting smoke curl out as he said it.

She was a terrible liar. A terrible fucking liar who somehow still got away with _fucking everything_ —whatever she was up to, Billy was sure he’d take the fall. He breathed into the flow of rage, keeping himself as cool and composed as he could.

“Mormons.”

“Mormons?” She _had_ to know how stupid she sounded—how dumb did she think he was?

“Yeah. Talkative ones.”

His hands itched to reach out and grab her when the little bitch sauntered right past him, but he knew any bruise on his _sister_ would make him dead meat.

The road was empty when he stepped out to check. He half-expected some gaggle of tweens to be ambushing his fucking house, too stupid to understand that Max was on lockdown until Neil and Susan came home. That was the only way to avoid a beating—make sure Max was at home and in one goddamn piece when their parents could see it.

And Billy couldn’t afford to end up stuck inside that night—he had a date. An actual fucking _date_ with that whore from the party. It felt like a million years ago since he’d fucked her, since _King_ _Steve_ started taking up all his spare time and brain space.

He hoped he could remember her name. If he couldn’t, it would look pretty bad. His rep at school as the new King couldn’t take a hit like that, not yet, anyway.

It ended with a “y”… Vicky, or Stacy, or something.

Harrington had knocked him way off his game.

 

* * *

 

Dustin explained the “ _situation_ ” in five or six increasingly annoying variations as Steve drove them back to his house, contemplating just how much more annoying the kid would get if Steve asked him if he was _sure_ he saw what he _fucking_ _saw_.

Instead, Steve put the Beemer in park in his own driveway and briefly considered whether or not to just tell Henderson to get lost-- but he just _couldn’t_. He couldn’t do that, because at some point, Steve Harrington had gone from King of Hawkins High to an actual good person.

Billy Hargrove could have the fucking crown, he didn’t give a _shit_. Steve had more important things to do.  

He slammed his way out of the car and up to his door without acknowledging Henderson’s exclamation of “Whoa, Dude—you actually live here?”

Yes, he did live in Loch Nora, it wasn’t a groundbreaking discovery.

He’d just help the kid with whatever this thing was, and fucking _hope_ that it wasn’t more serious than a stupid prank.

The bat was just where he’d left it after last year’s catastrophe, propped up behind his bed, between the headboard and the wall. There were still a couple splotches of dried blood on the nails of it that he’d missed while cleaning all the literal _monster_ _blood_ away.

Steve couldn’t believe that this was his life. He was just getting back to normal, and these parallel universe shitheads had to come right back and ruin everything. Nerves jumped in his stomach at the idea that this might actually be happening. That this monster was real, and not some weird lizard that caught hold in Dustin Henderson’s imagination.

“ _C’mon_ , Steve!” Speaking of that little twerp…

Steve hurried off to the landing and fixed Dustin with a purposely bored stare where he had walked right in to Steve’s foyer.

He was lucky his parents weren’t home.

“Please, by all means, come in…” he deadpanned, but Dustin just shot him a rude gesture.

“You take _forever_ , Man, let’s go!”

Steve kind of hated this little asshole, but he plodded down the stairs anyway.

If there was actually anything going on, he couldn’t just _let_ Henderson get hurt. Steve had _seen_ these fucking Demogorgen things, they’d rip the nerd to absolute _shreds_. Steve wouldn’t be able to live with that, so he let the kid usher him back out into the November air and together they drove off to Dustin’s house.

Part of him still desperately wanted to believe that this wasn’t a real problem. He wanted to ignore the feeling deep inside him that said this whole business was worse than either of them could imagine, even after Dustin told him that the damn thing had opened its _fucking_ _face_ and _ate_ _his_ _cat_.

Steve just wanted to find Nancy, make things right, and go back to the menial day to day he used to have, when the most important thing in his tiny world was graduating high school and deciding if he wanted to go to college or join his dad’s company. He didn’t even want to think about those _normal_ _human_ parts of his life—why would he want to worry about actual _monsters_?

He couldn’t leave, though, not once he found himself in the Henderson’s basement. The universe made his decision for him when he saw the mess of molted skin on the concrete floor, oozing some otherworldly fluid that Steve could never unsee.

The tunnel that had been dug under the house was the last straw. Steve resigned himself to looking out for Dustin _fucking_ Henderson like some inter-dimensional babysitter, because the Demogorgon was back. There were no pranks here.

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe Steve didn’t totally hate this Dustin kid.

The little dumbass clearly needed help, in more ways than just one.

“Okay, so let me get this straight—you kept something you knew was probably dangerous in order to impress a _girl_ , a girl who’d just _met_?”

It just didn’t compute.

Given, it didn’t compute for _Steve_ _Harrington,_ and _of course_ it wouldn't—the King of Hawkins High, the Basketball captain, a “ _Pretty_ _Boy_ ”. Steve lived in a Pretty Bubble. He’d never had to actually _try_ to impress a girl until Nancy came along, and even then it wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. He had never had to step through complicated or dangerous or stupid trials for the sole purpose of getting the attention of anyone, except maybe his parents.

“Alright, that’s grossly oversimplifying things.” Dustin responded.

“I mean, why would a girl like some nasty slug anyway?” Steve immediately jumped in, tossing some raw beef tips at the railroad tracks.

“An _inter_ - _dimensional_ slug? Because it’s awesome!” the little shit replied as if Steve was stupid or something, and the older boy rolled his eyes.

If he were a girl, Steve would be about as impressed by a slug as he would by a literal punch in the face. Dustin Henderson needed all the help he could get.

At least he tried to break it to the kid gently, stumbling through a few starts of aborted sentences before he managed “I don’t know. I feel like you’re trying way too hard, Kid.”

Dustin scoffed, throwing more slimy meat chunks at the ground “Well, not everyone can have your perfect hair…”

“Hey, hey—it’s not about the hair, Man. It’s about…” he thought, unsure of what he’d ever really done for that kind of attention… He ignored other girls now, because he loved Nancy, but for some reason, not even she was really coming to mind. Instead, there was a flash of predatory, _magnetic_ blue eyes through Steve’s thoughts like lightning, sending a surge of warmth from the cradle of his hips to the tips of his ears.

He hoped that he didn’t blush, shrugging away the feeling.

“The key to girls is just acting like you don’t care.”

There was a beat of silence that Steve took to be proud of his advice, thinking about how with Nancy he had always been playing it cool. Even with _Billy_ —especially with Billy—he hung back, letting the asshole run himself out. Love him or hate him, Steve couldn’t deny that he got some type of feeling from driving the blonde a little _nuts_ , just like Billy clearly loved knocking him on his ass in Basketball practice.  

“Even when you do?”

“Yeah exactly—drives ‘em nuts.” A wave of mixed nerves and adrenaline started spreading in slow spirals out from Steve’s chest, the point that was so often the epicenter of his anxiety. Dustin couldn’t tell that some of this wasn't just about _girls_ , Steve told himself, taking a steadying breath. The kid didn’t have to know that they weren’t _just_ talking about Nancy. It didn’t mean Steve didn’t love her…

“And then what?”

“And then… you wait. Until you feel _it_.” He said, nudging Henderson with the clean back of his slimy glove.

“Feel what?”

 _Ugh_. _God_ , he was hoping the kid would have figured this out by now, it wasn’t Steve’s job to give _that_ talk. He swallowed the awkwardness, trying to focus on the last time that he’d felt _it--_ at Tina's party, probably,when the crackle between his and Billy Hargrove’s bodies had nearly pulled Steve right into the blonde's tan chest. Steve had forgotten that Nancy was even standing next to him—he was just drunk, he told himself, it didn’t really _mean_ anything when Billy’s piercing blue eyes locked onto his at the Halloween party.

Of course, he’d seen the new kid in English class, but Steve hadn’t really _looked_ before. When he took off his Ray Bans at Tina's, though, he was just drunk enough to _look_.

And that was when he felt _it_.

“It’s like when it’s just about to storm, you know?” he swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry and heat tingling up and down his spine “You can’t see it, but you can feel it, like this uh, electricity?”

Dustin tried to go off on some tangent about space or magnets or whatever, and Steve just brushed that aside, however magnetized he might feel with Billy next to him in the goddamn showers, or pressed up close but _not_ _close_ _enough_ during practice.

 _God_ , Steve wished he could hate that asshole.

“No, no no _no_ , I mean _sexual_ electricity… You feel _that_ , and then you make your move.”

Billy was the epitome of aggression. His hair was so golden and wild, and his eyes were so sharp and dangerous that Steve could swear the other boy was hunting him. Like a _lion_.

 Steve _couldn’t_ say whether he had wanted the other boy to kiss him—to get rough, push him into the shower wall and tell him he was a “Pretty Boy” in that low growl—because he just _couldn’t_. Every time his thoughts drifted to the blonde, when Steve felt that thrill of adrenaline and that urge to _just shut Billy up_ , he found himself shaking it away with a sinking feeling of shame.

He told himself again, that he _loved_ Nancy. That being with Nancy was the right way for things to be.     

With Nancy, everything had been different. She was _different_ _than_ _the_ _other_ _girls_. When Dustin asked, that was what Steve said, and he told himself again and again, feeling a miserable tug on his heart.  The only real reason why she was so different, though, was because he _knew_ her. He gave her his heart, he fell in love with her. He trusted that she loved him, too.

Steve Harrington _knew_ Nancy Wheeler. At least, he thought he did—he _had_ known her, until she’d drunkenly slurred in his face just how much of their year together was _bullshit_.

A memory came up in his mind from what felt like a million years ago, when he had stumbled into Nancy’s room for the first time, insisting on his ninja-like stealth. Bitterly, he thought that maybe Nancy _had_ been like all the other girls he’d had to be charming and stealthy with. No, in fact, he _wished_ she had been. At least none of the others had stayed longer than a week or two. No one else had let him hope and daydream for a _whole_ _fucking future_ together—he thought that with Nancy he had finally found someone who _cared_ enough to see beyond his popularity and money and stupidity.

For one horrible moment, the bitterness took over and this overwhelming anger took this place. Well, he hoped that she and Jonathan were  _happy_ together.

Steve Harrington was tired of playing the fucking fool.

“You’re not fallin’ in love with this girl, are you?” He asked, too irritable to indulge Dustin in his poetic _bullshit_ about some girl.

“N-no.”

“Good.” He threw a handful of meat onto the tracks “Cus she’s just gonna break your heart, and you’re way too young for that shit.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST OF ALL: THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS! I LOVE YOU ALL. 
> 
> SECOND OF ALL: I AM SO SORRY. This chapter made me cry while writing it, and it's really fucking sad. There are a couple more brief mentions of suicide, but like I've said before, I don't consider Billy to be suicidal as much as I do desperate for a way away from his dad. He talks about escaping in a few different ways, he doesn't WANT to DIE though. Not REALLY. Regardless, if that's triggering for you, consider yourself warned. I love you, stay safe. 
> 
> Alright. Here it is. Enjoy, and let me know your feelings in the comments <3 
> 
> PS. I PROMISE THIS STORY HAS A HAPPY ENDING. PROMISE.

Billy Hargrove didn’t cry. He _didn’t_.

He could rage, and scream, and _fight_ like a _motherfucker_. He’d punch the frosted over fields of this shithole town, he’d even take a swing at a _cop_ , but under no circumstances did he fucking cry.  Not even when Neil told him to “Open the door. Right now.” and a spike of absolute terror lanced through his chest. A tight, familiar knot formed in his throat and his eyes felt hot as he looked in the mirror for one last second before he swallowed that lump down and turned to face whatever he’d done this time.

Max wasn’t in her room. The window was open.

Billy’s blood turned to ice for those first few seconds with Neil’s vicious gaze raking over him. Susan’s wide eyes peeked out from behind his shoulder, but Billy didn’t kid himself into thinking that maybe she was worried about him.

His stupid stepsister had fucked him over again. _Perfect_ little Maxine.

There was no avoiding the attitude, the unchecked _disrespect_ in the way that Billy laid into his dad. He knew what it would get him, but what was the fucking point? He would get beat if he said it and beat if he didn’t. He might as well show some goddamn _strength_ , instead of begging forgiveness and playing into the fucking _fantasy_ that he’d actually done anything wrong in the first place.

It was somewhere between “ _you were three hours late_ ” and “ _what d’you want me to do about it?_ ” that Billy saw it coming. He could feel the tension building between them, boiling over like a tea kettle on the stove, screaming with overwhelming urgency with pounding of his heart.

He saw it coming, and he would have been braced for impact if Neil hadn’t said what he fucking _said_ and confirmed all of Billy’s fears.

His dad called him a “ _faggot_ ”. Billy felt transparent-- as if the club back home, Charlie, and even   _Steve_ _Harrington_ were all standing right behind him and making it crystal fucking clear _what_ he was. Neil _knew_ , he must know.

Billy didn’t have the time to indulge the panic that he was suddenly submerged in. His spine was slammed into the bookshelf behind him, the wind knocked right out of his already strangled lungs, but he didn’t fucking cry. Not even with Neil’s grip bruising his jaw just like it had when he’d fractured it all those years ago. Billy’s hands were clenched in fists, but his palms were damp with sweat. He was frozen to the spot staring back into his dad’s face, even with his eyes hot and vision blurring.

Susan cried out something Billy couldn’t quite catch through the ringing sense of terror and wrath in his ears, but he didn’t kid himself into thinking she might actually _do_ something.

After all, as long as Neil’s anger could be sated by Billy, he wouldn’t be beating on her or her _precious_ _perfect_ daughter.

It wasn’t until Neil gave the order commanding him to find Maxine that Billy found a voice in his throat that was more than a ragged whisper.

“Yes Sir.” He said, knowing that for now, at least, this would be the end of it.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“ _Yes_ _Sir_.” Billy nearly spat, leaning on his anger to carry him through the fear.

The slap on his face stung, but Billy only felt the exhausting relief of finally being left alone, his back still pressed against the shelves. Susan looked almost like she wanted to say something, but only stayed and watched him from the doorway for a second longer. He didn’t have a single doubt that she saw when that single, fat tear slid down his cheek.

She just didn’t care.

 

* * *

 

 

When Billy reached a certain level of suppressed emotions but refused to let it out, they mutated into this toxic blend of natural cocaine that started right at his hammering heart and buzzed through his system. He smoked a whole cigarette on the short drive to the Sinclair house, hands shaking as he sped through the backroads until he could gather a semblance of relaxed charm for the woman at the door.

He barely kept himself composed when Mrs. Sinclair told him that Max wasn’t there, and it was the fucking _Wheeler’s_ house he needed to go to. Halfway in the opposite direction.

He let the last deep inhale of smoke burn through his lungs as he threw the Camaro into park at the big, _rich_ - _people_ house that the Wheelers apparently lived in.

Billy curled his lip at their ugly fucking Reagan lawn sign and ditched the last of his cig in the grass. He tried taking a calming breath of the cold night air as he rang the doorbell, getting a mask in place to convince some pampered housewife that he actually cared where “ _his_ _sister_ ” was.

He rang the doorbell again. And then another time, and he was starting to feel that itch of fresh irritation—the need for another smoke—when the door finally opened.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t taken aback for a second—a Reagan/Bush ticket on their fucking lawn gave more of the uptight church lady vibe. Billy was far from expecting Mrs. Republican Values to be the type of person that answers her door in her _bathrobe_.

There was no way she hadn’t noticed him staring, but there was also no way that this woman wasn’t staring back in a whole other kind of way. Billy drank in the look on Mrs. Wheeler’s face, feeding into the only positive energy that he’d felt since his dad had come beating down his door.

She didn’t need to know just how little he fucking cared about her and her goddamn bathrobe.

“You must be here for Nancy…” she fluttered, and Billy regained his footing pretty fast after that, swallowing the urge to laugh in this lady’s face. As if Nancy Wheeler was at the top of his list of people…

“No, no—not my type.” He replied with a grin that had been practiced on every high school girl from San Francisco Bay to Hawkins, Indiana.  

All that work charming the bitch, and all he got was another lousy set of directions to another little brat’s house. The Byers house, however, was closer to Billy’s. Barely a mile or two away, based on the directions. Billy set his mouth in a thin line, feeling a sinking pit in his stomach at the thought of going home that night.

Max had already sealed his fate when she ran away-- Billy might as well get it over with. Bring the bitch back, and take his beating like a man.

He had another smoke between his lips by the time he was back behind the wheel, the wrath in his veins getting wilder and more difficult to beat down as he contemplated just what the Hell he was going to do with that little bitch when he fucking found her.

This was all her fault—all of it. Leaving San Diego, leaving California, losing his _home_ —it was all Maxine and Susan’s fucking fault, and if Mom was still _fucking_ _alive_ , none of this would be as bad as it was. Billy hated his life.

No wonder Mom left, she must’ve hated it too.

Rage boiled up in him again, blinding for a moment—towards Mom, Susan, Neil, Maxine, the fucking world, he didn’t know.

But there was one thing he _did_ know—he was going to get the shit kicked out of him that night, whether he found Max or not. _That_ was all her fucking _fault_.

Billy wanted to _kill_ her—he wanted to cave her smug little face in on the curb of the fucking road and leave her there to rot. Smelled so fucking rancid in this town, no one would probably even notice. He wanted to see the look on Susan’s face when her little plan to use Billy as a human shield _backfired_. The blood might end up on Billy’s hands, but his stepmother would hardly be clean, and he’d make sure to tell her that.

A little part of him-- locked away in the last soft part he had left-- erupted with that same fear that had been so amplified lately. He was so sick of being scared. Whether or not he got beat later, Billy didn’t want to fucking _kill_ _anybody_. For one long second, Billy squeezed the steering wheel and felt the overwhelming urge to vomit. He swallowed audibly, his stomach heaving as the claustrophobic squeeze of his life closed its vice-like grip around him.

With wild abandon, Billy found himself hoping he _didn’t_ find Max. He wanted to drive until he hit the highway, until he could see the ocean from his car window again. He wanted to go home.

Billy wanted his _mom_.

His vision was blurring again as he swerved from backroad to backroad, half following Mrs. Wheeler’s directions and half just looking for a way out of this _mess_.

The panic was starting to really set in, and he whimpered pathetically, forcing himself to breathe in and out as the houses of the neighborhood whipped by. Desperate, the cocktail of his swirling emotions conflicting and exploding one by one in his chest, Billy pulled over and lit up a fresh cigarette. He had to get a fucking grip on himself. He wasn’t going to be some pussy who freaked out and got himself killed or something for the sake of stupid little Maxine.

He smoked half the cig before his heart began to slow to an almost sane rhythm, and he clenched and stretched his fingers over the steering wheel as he felt his muscles relax just a little. It was just enough.

With surviving the night the only thing on his mind, Billy shifted the Camaro into gear and revved the engine, feeling the roar of the car and letting it fill him up. He leaned into his heavy stores of rage, focusing only on the bubbling undercurrent of anger to keep him putting one foot in front of the other. He had to find Max, and he’d fucking do it. If he didn’t, Neil would only make tonight worse.

 

* * *

 

There was something off-putting about the ramshackle little house, set back away from the road and steeped in fog. It set something tingling in Billy’s muscles, tense and wary.

And that was even before he looked up from lighting his smoke and saw the figure on the porch step.

His heartbeat picked up, he sucked in a long drag of smoke and let a searing blend of pent up feeling course through him. It left him giddy and high, his fists clenching as the nicotine and bubbling rage twined with the _sinful_ image of Steve Harrington in those tight fucking jeans and stupid Members Only jacket.

He looked damn near _edible_. Billy couldn’t ignore the foggy woods and feeling of eyes on him, though, not even with a distraction like this. 

“Am I dreaming, or is that you, Harrington?” he drawled, leaning on the Camaro door and smugly satisfied that he had dressed for a date.

“Yeah, it’s me, don’t cream your pants.” Harrington deadpanned back, his usual apathy firmly in place.

Billy tamped down on the laugh, letting smoke curl around his face as he stripped out of his leather jacket. It was purely because it would limit his movement to have it on, though. Billy wasn’t just exposing his chest in the way he knew had caught Harrington’s attention at the party. The line of his pecs and abs that had garnered the swooning gaze of Karen Wheeler.

Billy just wanted to be prepared to fight. That was it.

“What’re you doin’ here, Amigo?”

“Yeah, I could ask you the same thing.” The brunette lazily replied. As if something hinky wasn’t happening right under their noses.

“Im lookin’ for my stepsister—“ he divulged, humoring Steve just as long as it kept his gaze trained on him. “A little birdy told me she was here.”

And there she was. _Thank you, Karen Wheeler_ , Billy thought, catching a glimpse of red hair and freckles through the window, urgently watching him with three other small faces. One of them, no surprise, was Lucas Sinclair.

All that fucking searching, and she’d been down the goddamn street with some boy the whole time. The heat of his explosive temper simmered under his skin, drawing his muscles up tight just at the sight of her.

“Huh, that’s weird—never met her.”    

Billy fought the urge to immediately call bullshit, instead drawing it out. And why wouldn’t he when Steve looked so pretty when he squirmed.

“Hm. Small, red head—bit of a bitch?” he questioned, cigarette hanging unsmoked from his lips as he reveled in the way Steve fidgeted when he lied.

“Doesn’t ring a bell, sorry Buddy.” _Buddy_ —King Steve thought they were _buddies_ now? Billy’s fire stoked up higher, getting just this side of unbearable as the brunette just crossed his arms as if this was some relaxed conversation between _buddies_.

He took a long inhale on his smoke, letting the burn of it flood through him. This was just too fucking weird, and he didn’t like to sound like he gave a fuck, but his _responsibility_ was staring out at him from that goddamn window.

Harrington tried to bullshit him just a little bit further. 

But, this time Billy wasn’t having it—not on this awful night, not when everyone was acting so fucking _weird_ , not with eyes on him through the mist. Billy wanted Steve Harrington to throw a fucking punch, and do it like he meant it.

If there was going to be a beating at home, Billy was damn certain he’d get a few hits in _somewhere_.

“Man, were you dropped too much as a child?” Steve asked, his own anger clearly climbing— _c’mon Harrington, now we’re getting somewhere_.

It was the wrong thing to say, though, if he was hoping Billy would go easy on him, not with all those fucking memories of his shit life suddenly saturating his brain. All that pain, all that rage, wondering what went wrong, but all Billy could wonder right then, was how nice this pretty boy would look with his face covered in blood.

Billy nearly salivated at the thought of feeling somebody’s, _anybody’s_ , bones under his knuckles—it made his hands feel tight, brought the caged animal in his heart out to prowl. Billy licked his lips and let the smoke billow out his lips and nostrils, relishing the burn.

“She’s not here.”

Yeah, _okay_ —how fucking stupid did he think he was? 

“Then who’s that?” he pointed, jabbing his cigarette over toward the window.

He seized his chance when Harrington looked, shoving him to the ground with barely any strain at all.

“I told you to plant your feet.” He sneered, his heart pounding in his ears when the floodgates opened and the rage started to flow like cocaine in his veins. He brought his boot down on Harrington’s chest, some part of him screaming to stop before he couldn’t anymore.

He remembered the first time he had Steve Harrington on his back before him, the grip the brunette had on his hand, and the urge to kiss those lips.

He didn’t spare a thought for the flash of memory, striding up to the front door with a haze of static in his head where his control used to be. He didn’t know what the Hell these little twerps were doing in this fucking house, he didn’t fucking care—because there was Lucas Sinclair, and there was his fucking _bitch_ of a stepsister.

It was all her fault. _Everything_. Every hit he had taken for her ungrateful ass was her fault, and he could still feel every fucking one of them when he looked in her terrified little face. He wanted her to be afraid, she _should_ fear Billy—he could ruin her whole fucking life, he could snap her in half, and _boy_ , was the fire burning in his gut now, ready to blow.

Steve Harrington had some fire in him after all, landing a solid punch that could almost compare to what he’d get later. Then another, and _another_.

Billy tasted his own blood, felt his own teeth throbbing in his mouth, but he had something that Pretty Boy clearly didn’t—experience in not only _taking_ a hit, but getting back up.

His brain turned off somewhere in that house—somewhere between Steve’s hands in his shirt, pulling him off of Lucas, and the smash of a plate that Billy had grabbed while he could still see a world beyond red hot, blinding anger and the thrill of finally _not holding anything back_.   

Billy felt his heart in his throat, and there was no retreat from the pulsing hatred that clenched his fists and tightened his stance. It was as natural as breathing to swing back and hit flesh. He gripped Harrington by his stupid jacket and he hurled him to the ground in a sprawl of limbs.

And then there was nothing but his heartbeat, nothing but feeling that he’d had to restrain when Neil had slammed him against his bedroom wall and gave a _command_ to be _obeyed_.

 _Nobody_ can tell Billy what to do. Not anymore.

It was like an overflow in a nuclear reactor. The world narrowed down to a constant deluge of helpless emotion— the grief, the betrayal, oppression, desperation, heartache, and _rage_. Endless, endless rage that cracked Steve Harrington’s head between Billy’s fist and the living room floor.

He was begging for release from this fucking prison of fear, _begging_ with everything he had for his life as he knew it to just _stop_. Heat ran down his cheeks, and he didn’t start to feel it until the moment started to slow. There were tear tracks cooling on his face.

He didn’t feel the syringe as much as he felt the drug, when he came back to Earth with his knuckles bruised and his nose bleeding.

Max was screaming, Billy was heavy and helpless, and Steve wasn’t moving at all.

Billy didn’t know if Harrington was okay, but he could already feel the swelling in his hands from how long and hard he’d been let loose on the other boy. Billy _didn’t_ care. He _told_ himself he didn’t care, at least, as he drifted into darkness. Billy didn’t care about anything as the room slipped in and out of focus. Maybe he wouldn’t wake up, maybe this could finally just _stop_.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t know how late it was, or whether Max was dead in a ditch somewhere—but his car was gone, he had just emptied his entire fucking emotional arsenal into Steve Harrington’s face, and he had never felt so alone. Not even when Mom died, or Ramirez left him in the hospital, or when he wrote that fucking letter to Ricardo after seeing Charlie’s mangled corpse on the pavement.

Billy missed his girls—he had never needed Paul’s dirty jokes, or Ricky’s soft Spanish comforts like he did then.

The eyes that he had felt from the fog between the trees were gone, but he still felt like an exposed nerve. Like there was no way he’d survive the fucking night.   

It was still pitch black outside when Billy had first woken up, and an eerie fog led the way into the woods beyond. Billy’s brain was slow to catch up, only aware of his sore muscles and pounding headache. His hands trembled as he forced himself up to standing, his knees nearly giving out from whatever Max had pumped into his system.

Only then-- with his mind finally clear enough to process anything beyond the murderous inundation of emotions he’d just let take over-- did Billy actually take a look around the trashed house.

Whatever the Hell he thought was happening here, it was _worse_. There were scribbled drawings of intertwining blue lines—they were taped up on the walls, across the floor, the furniture. The window had been shattered and boarded up.

Then there was the damage Billy had caused. There was a plate smashed in the kitchen, its shards scattered across the floor. The set of shelves where he’d shoved Lucas Sinclair was in complete disarray, and there was still a spatter of blood on the living room floor that made his breath catch. He could see the busted, bloodied face of Steve Harrington in his mind’s eye, then, and a crush of guilt clenched his heart.

Well, Harrington had at least been able to get up.

That was what he told himself, trying to ignore the surge of relief and shame that swept him up like a wave through the haze of the meds working out of his system. At least Billy didn’t fucking _kill_ anybody.  

What the _fuck_ had happened here?

He could shake it out of Maxine—God knows the little shit owed him for what he was about take from Neil for her fucking mistakes—

Then the gouges in the wood floor caught his eye. The gouges in the wood that Max had made in the floor, scant inches from his jeans.

She had used a fucking _nail_ _bat_. A _bat_ , full of fucking _nails_.

The question of where the Hell she’d found a thing like that hovered around in his brain like the fog outside.

The biggest question, though, was where the _fuck_ was his _fucking_ car?

Looking back later, Billy would be grateful for the drugs dulling his anxieties to a sleepy, slow version of his usual overflowing froth of feeling. If he hadn’t had the absolute inability to feel anything beyond shame and confusion, Billy would have had a goddamn panic attack about his poor Camaro.

Without the Camaro, all he could do was find his bearings and start walking.

Which was how he came to be wandering the cold woods between the Byers house and his own, wasting long swaths of time stumbling along the half-frozen stream with his heart in his stomach and his stomach in his boots, Neil’s eyes looming in his mind.  The stream was just a little bit calming, the trickle of clear water almost reminding him of the ocean’s crash at home. He’d give anything to go back there—where he’d never have to look Steve Harrington in his fucking beautiful brown eyes and see what he’d done. If Billy left, he’d never be responsible for that stupid little bitch again, he’d never have to answer to Neil for his transgressions that night or any other again.

He wanted to write to The Angle and beg for Hughie’s advice. He wanted to go to Steve Harrington and beg his fucking forgiveness. He wanted to go to Mom’s grave and ask why the fuck he hadn’t been worth staying for.

Billy Hargrove, exhausted and exposed, finally felt no anger. There was only a desperate swell of self-pity, guilt, and terror—terror that he could see the porch light of his house through the trees, and he knew it meant Neil had waited up.

The Camaro was in the driveway, no worse for wear.

He couldn’t help his heavy footfalls on the steps, his muscles still slow with the last of the drugs, but his mind was finally firing at something akin to its usual capacity, only inhibited by exhaustion and grief.

“Some cop showed up and dropped off Maxine about an hour ago.” Was the first thing Neil said, and just the sound of his cold voice sent Billy into a fit of trembling fear like a man facing the gallows. He couldn’t turn and look at him, not with the sudden lump in his throat and the burn of the tears in his eyes.

“Bill.” He felt Neil’s steps toward him “What have we talked about?”

He didn’t reply. Billy didn’t know if it was out of stubbornness or the sheer inability to open his mouth without sobbing.

“Answer me. _Now_.” The pressure was building and for once, Billy felt as if he wasn’t a part of the storm about to hit—he felt like a tiny boat on the sea, about to be struck by lightning.

He cleared his aching throat and stumbled through the words “ _R-respect, an-and responsibility_.”

Billy Hargrove cried. He was crying before Neil even landed the first punch.    

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST FANDOM EVER. 
> 
> LIKE SERIOUSLY. 
> 
> Thank you for all of your sweet, encouraging comments, you guys keep me writing <3 
> 
> Quick note: My semester starts tomorrow, so chapters are going to become a little less frequent, but things are about to get better! We've almost finished the Slow-Burn portion of our journey, and I hope that will keep you guys coming back for Part 2, even if my updates are less frequent! 
> 
> Thank you for the love, and as always-- let me know what you think! <333

The last of the adrenaline that had gotten him through setting those slimy tunnels on fire and protecting those little shitheads was finally wearing off to absolute and utter exhaustion by the time Steve found himself back at the Byers house.

The celebrations of their victory were quiet—there were long, meaningful embraces that said more than words, and the bandaging of injuries big and small. Joyce Byers looked like years had been taken off her life, holding her sons like they were going to be snatched from her. The Chief hugged the little woman, seeming to hold her steady while she silently shook apart.

There was a lot of feeling there that Steve wasn’t equip to handle at the best of times, and least of all right then, with his head pounding and nose throbbing, sitting at the kitchen table because he just couldn’t stand anymore.

It made Steve’s heart ache for Mrs. Byers, and if he had the energy for emotions, it might have surprised him to find out that he _cared_ about these people— _all_ of them, at least enough to fight by their side. Even though they were the essence of the people his parents would turn their noses at. Even though they included the weirdest bunch of nerdy kids and psychic powers and his _ex_ -girlfriend and her _new_ _boyfriend_ — _fuck_.

He wasn’t even mad anymore, though—how could he be? Steve had looked over at them earlier, standing over Will’s unconscious body, and that feeling of something being wrong somehow faded. Nancy was supposed to be with Jonathan, and why shouldn’t she be? Because Steve was being selfish, not wanting to face the music? That wasn’t fair. It still stung, but this was the _right_ way for things to be.

Joyce made her way around the group and their minor injuries to Steve. She held a bag of frozen peas and a baffled expression that asked when Demodogs had grown _fists_.

“Honey, what happened to you?” she said, her voice soft like she could tell his mushy brain couldn’t handle anything louder.

Dustin launched in before Steve’s dry mouth could catch up with him “Max’s _psycho_ brother nearly beat his face in--!”

“He’s my _stepbrother_ , Asshole—“

“Steve got some good hits in, though—I thought Billy was gonna _kill_ me!” Lucas defended, and Steve managed half a tired smile at the kid. He liked Lucas.

“Whoa whoa _whoa_ —who is this kid?” Hopper cut in, scanning over Steve’s injuries with his keen eyes from where he’d been sitting with his sleeping daughter. “Billy who?”

“Billy Hargrove.” Steve managed to get out before anyone else, the name sticking in his mouth like molasses. It felt weird to say the other boy’s name out loud, and a spark of something warm settled in his gut—Steve wrote it off as nausea, as part of the concussion. The Chief was watching him like he’d just said something very interesting, brow furrowed and lips set in a firm line “He came looking for Max, he um…” he couldn’t say the rest. It felt too incriminating, like for some reason he didn’t want to snitch on the wild blonde that broke his nose.

Weird. Tonight was just so fucking _weird_.

“It’s okay, I guess…” he shrugged, sending shooting pain up his sides in a way that made him catch his breath “I, uh, I only had like, a few brain cells left anyway.”    

It was supposed to be a joke, but Nancy gave him this look that said she heard the true sentiment loud and clear—after all, they were together for a whole year of their lives. You confide in the people you love.

“That’s not true, Steve.” She said, her hand making an aborted little gesture toward his, like she wanted to hold it.

“Thanks Nance, that wasn’t patronizing at all.” He wasn’t angry at her—he’d taken the last of that and driven it into Billy Hargrove’s face. But all the exasperation and pain and exhaustion had accumulated into a mess of hazy sarcasm. He couldn't help it. 

He was so fucking tired, pressing the frozen peas to his bloody nose.

He let the conversation continue around him, ignored the concerned brown eyes of Joyce Byers with all his limited abilities. He closed his aching eyes, losing himself for a few long moments in the throbbing pulse of his bruised brain, his ears ringing. Nancy was saying something that he didn’t care about—so were Dustin and Hopper, and Steve didn’t have the energy or willpower to rejoin the conversation until Joyce rested a hand on his shoulder and jostled him lightly.

He felt like a ship tossed by a fucking rogue wave, though, the contents of his stomach flipping horribly.

“ _Ugh_ , don’ do that…” he slurred.

“Can’t fall asleep on us, Hon. We should get you to a hospital—“

“ _No_.” he said it loudly and emphatically, snapping his head up out of his peas, eyes wide—it instantly smacked him with a fresh wave of nausea, his entire body going hot with the overwhelming pain for a second or two.

It certainly got everyone’s attention.

“You, you gotta get _her_ —“ he gestured weakly at the vague redhead shape that was Max “—home. I’ve had co’cussions b’fore, ‘m fine…”  

He was, _maybe_ , not fine. But, he didn’t need a fucking _hospital_. Besides, they’d have to call his parents and what if they didn’t show up? What if they didn’t even notice Steve wasn’t home? His dad had left that afternoon to spend the week up in Chicago—at least, he thought it was Chicago—for “ _work_ ”, and his mom wasn’t home when he stopped by to grab his bat.

The only person who knew anything about his parents was Nancy, and even then, he told her as little as possible. You confide in the people you love, but not when _that_ _person’s_ family is so _perfect_ and _your_ mom might not remember your name.

He just wanted to go to sleep so fucking badly.

“Kiddo, you’re slurring—I’m taking all these guys home to their parents, and then _you_ and _I_ are going to the _hospital_. At least let ‘em set your nose.” Hopper groused, no nonsense as usual.

“Don’ need it…” Steve tried to shake his head, which was a horrible idea, but he was cut off when two hands that were definitely not Joyce Byers’s were gripping both his shoulders and he finally breathed hard enough to make the room stop spinning and look up. Dustin Henderson was looking at him with this stupidly sincere expression on his face.

“Steve, you’ve saved our lives like, five times tonight—please go.” Lucas and Max were nodding along. Even Mike had left El’s side, making an appearance with his friends.

These little shits weren’t too obnoxious, he supposed.

 

* * *

 

  

Hopper took him to the hospital, and took him home afterward.

The big house was pitch dark, and for a minute Steve just stared at it blearily from the windshield of the truck. He didn’t want to go in. It would be so quiet, so lonely—these weren’t unusual feelings for Steve, but there was something new that curled its way through his veins like icy water. _Fear_. He didn’t want to be alone now that he’d seen the Upside Down with his own eyes.

Steve had done things that night that he never thought he was capable of. He could still feel the heat of the flames on his face, and hear the thundering steps of all those demodogs as he pushed Dustin behind him.

“Um, thanks Chief.” the silence was awkward, but he still didn’t want to get out of the warm car.

Hopper nodded, tight-lipped. “Don’t mention it, Kid.”

Steve forced himself to move his exhausted, aching limbs to swing open the door and set his feet on the ground. His legs were wobbly, and he tipped for a moment. In the nondescript static of his head, the memory of Billy Hargrove came charging up, smelling like cigarettes and cheap cologne, hissing “ _I told you to plant your feet_ ”, making his already churning stomach flip uncomfortably.  

It wasn’t until he nearly tumbled over getting the spare key from under the pot that he felt a steadying hand on his back and noticed that the Chief had been standing beside him the whole way to the door. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the touch, whirling around like he still had his bat in his hand.

“Hey, hey—relax. Just making sure you don’t wipe out the second you’re in the door.” He grumbled, taking the key from Steve’s trembling grip and getting the front door open.

There was a note on the kitchen counter, a fifty dollar bill lying under it. As if that made the dark corners of the silent house any more bearable.

“ _Steven_ —“ it read “ _Had to go with your father to Chicago. You know how he can be, it’s only a precaution. No parties, no drinking, no smoking—the neighbors talked for weeks last time_.”

His mother had cold, elegant handwriting to go with her cold, elegant nature.

Hopper was still there, watching him read, and he saw Steve roll his eyes at the note before remembering just how agonizing that would be.

“Anybody coming home soon?” the older man asked, and Steve didn’t have the energy to do more than make some vague gesture with his hands, as if brushing away the sting of being alone.

Hopper let out a long breath through his nose, joining Steve at the kitchen counter. He put his hand out for the little note, and after a moment of half-assed deliberation, Steve handed it to him. He didn’t care anymore, he was too tired for this shit.

Hopper huffed, shaking his head as he read before flipping the note over and fishing out a pen from his jacket.

“Alright, kid—I don’t like the idea of you all by yourself in your condition, but here’s what we’re gonna do—“ he scrawled a phone number on the back of his mom’s swirling cursive writing, underlining it three times. “You’re gonna call this number when you wake up tomorrow morning. It’s my direct line at the station. You’re gonna call this number as soon as you’re awake tomorrow and let me know—if you don’t, I’m coming to check on you.” His eyes were fixed on his and Steve felt compelled to hold his gaze, even though his eyes were watery and stinging. “D’you hear me, Harrington?”

He managed a nod, the edges of his vision getting blurry and dark.

“Alright—clean up and get some sleep, then.” For a moment, Hopper put his big hand on the back of Steve’s neck and squeezed gently. It was at odds with everything Steve ever knew about the gruff Chief, and something Steve didn’t know he needed.

His dad didn’t ever really touch him. John Harrington wasn’t the hugging type, that was for sure, and affection was pretty far out of his ballpark. So, Steve didn’t get that physical reassurance—at least, not until the warm weight of Chief Hopper’s hand cradled his neck like he’d wanted from his dad so many times, just at the time he needed comfort so _fucking_ _badly_. Between the physical trauma and the emotional, Steve nearly whimpered when the man finally turned to leave.

Hopper gave him one last, stern look and said “That number. Tomorrow morning.”

And then Steve was alone again.

 

* * *

 

 

Sunday was quiet. Steve called Hopper like he was supposed to, and spent most of the day popping the pills that the ER nurse had given him on his way out and sleeping on the sofa. He was so sore, it felt like his face had its own pulse. Dustin showed up at his door some time in the afternoon with Lucas, a pizza, and a Star Wars VHS. His smile was so bright and hopeful, Steve didn't have the heart to turn them away.

For all of Sunday, he convinced himself that Billy Hargrove was fucking nuts—that he had been nuts the whole fucking time, and Steve had just happened to be the person who was the last straw in his crazy hat. He almost called Hopper and pressed charges against the “ _psycho_ ” like Dustin said he should.

That changed when he walked in the front doors of the school on Monday. He ignored the stares and gasps of the less subtle students who he passed in the halls all day, but one set of eyes was missing.

It felt strange, walking through life without the familiar penetrating stare of the blonde on him from 3rd period to Basketball practice. Practice seemed so quiet, the shower stall next to him was too empty, and even the parking lot was different without the roar of the Camaro’s engine. The strangest thing of all, though, was that Steve wasn’t relieved that the other boy was gone. He’d been dreading it—going into class to see his taunting grin. He thought he would’ve taken credit for the state of Steve’s nose by now, as some weird claim of “ _King_ ” Steve’s “ _crown_ ”, but it never came.

Billy wasn’t there at all.

Billy Hargrove was absent for three whole days. In that time, the story about Barb broke in the papers and the whole school started buzzing about things that weren’t “ _Steve Harrington’s messed up face_ ” or “ _The mysterious disappearance of Billy Hargrove_ ”.  

But, on Thursday, the blonde was back, at least in time for practice. Steve walked into the locker room and stopped in his tracks to gawp at the state of the boy at his locker, unable to think beyond the knowledge that, while he’d gotten a few solid hits in, Steve knew that he did _not_ do _that_.

The brunette wasn’t the only one who had taken a beating lately. Billy looked like he’d been in some type of horrible accident—the piercing blue iris of his left eye was ringed with red from the popped blood vessels, and the tender flesh around was bruised a deep purple. It was the kind of shiner that had probably, until recently, been swollen completely shut. His cheek was gashed, butterfly bandages holding it closed, and his other cheek had a mottle of black and blue that looked nothing short of agonizing.

“Stick your eyes back in your fucking head, Harrington.” Billy growled, but there was no heat to it. He could barely even meet Steve’s eye, just glancing up quick and then back into where he was shoving his gym clothes into his backpack.

“Are you not playin’ today?” He asked stupidly, as if he didn’t plainly see the stiff way the blonde moved to fill up his backpack with old shorts and socks and his basketball sneakers.

Billy hissed out a slow breath from between his teeth, like he was trying to keep himself under control in any way possible “Nope, just collecting laundry—I was here to talk to Coach.”

Steve nodded slowly as if he was processing literally _anything_ the other boy had said when, actually, his brain was still thinking about what the _fuck_ happened to his face. Billy had a nice face, a _really_ nice face, he didn’t deserve to be—

Billy slammed his locker and the metal bang echoed through the empty locker room “Harrington— _what_ do you _want_?” his fists were clenched and his jaw was set, but it looked like a painful strain.

Steve didn’t know why he wasn’t afraid, standing this close to the boy that he had recently declared to be “ _fucking_ _nuts_ ”, in a nearly empty gym locker room. The boy who sent him to the fucking hospital less than a week before. But, Billy suddenly seemed so _human_. Like, something in him had burst and deflated the never ending simmer of malicious, mischievous energy under his skin, and all that was left was the blonde hair and bruised face of a seventeen year old boy.

Steve couldn’t explain it, he didn’t understand it himself.     

“Well, either you were literally hit by a speeding car, or somebody beat the shit out of you—Cus’ I know I didn’t do that damage on Saturday—“

He was cut off by hands on his chest, shoving him into the bank of lockers and making the bruises on his torso throb.

Billy Hargrove was looking at him straight on then, a quickly fading fire in his blue eyes as he held Steve against the wall.

The two of them just looked at each other for a long moment, time stopping as they both seemed to come to a mutual understanding. Black eye to black eye, the two boys took in each other’s busted faces—and _Billy_ seemed like the one who was scared. He was finally really taking in his handiwork on Steve’s pretty face, finally seeing all the damage he’d done, and he looked almost like he was going to cry.

Steve didn’t understand more than the bare basics of it, but he knew remorse when he saw it. The air crackled and popped between them, and Steve felt warmth spreading through him, bone deep as he looked at Billy Hargrove’s _human_ face.

Just as the electricity between them seemed to reach critical levels, Billy was off of him, stepping away and training his eyes on his boots, the door, anywhere but Steve, and at that moment he’d do anything for the blonde to just _stay_.

 _Look at me!_ He begged with every bit of his bruised brain.

“If it really fucking matters to you that much, I’ll be back on the court after break.” Billy finally broke the tense quiet, turning to leave with his backpack gingerly slung on his shoulder  “You look like shit, by the way.”

“Thanks, you too.” Steve managed to find enough of his voice to quip back, half of a wry smirk on his lips.

He skipped Basketball, sitting in his Beemer with a mind boggling number of questions that he wanted answers to, Billy Hargrove swimming through his thoughts with the smell of cigarettes and cheap cologne.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! THIS CHAPTER WAS SO REFRESHING AND FUN TO WRITE. 
> 
> Love you all <3

**One Month Later**

Winter break was a moderate relief from the veritable mess that ensued as Steve rebuilt his life after the closing of the Gate. He breathed a sigh and for once, actually hoped for solitude. At least he wouldn’t have guidance counselors and his English teacher trying to corner him to talk about his grades, or kids whispering behind their hands about his face and his break up, or Billy Hargove’s piercing blue gaze following him through the halls.

Well, he wasn’t sure if _that_ was a relief or a _disappointment_ , but he told himself the distance would be good.

Within two weeks of Murray’s story breaking, Barb’s funeral finally took place. Nancy cried almost as hard as Mrs. Holland, Jonathan’s arm tucked around her. Out of habit, Steve almost went to comfort her, but stopped himself. That wasn’t his job anymore, and he supposed he’d never been too good at it either.

While Steve had made his peace with that, he couldn’t help the pang in his chest. But, it was somehow relieving to know that Nance was with someone who understood her. Steve had spent a few long nights going over and over the past year in his mind, and he had been right when he said that he was a shitty boyfriend—Nancy deserved what was best for her.

He hadn’t seen either of them since that horrible night, but he didn’t try to talk to them.

He didn’t ask them if they were having nightmares, or if they were waking up unable to breathe, or if they were seeing things in the shadows. Steve just watched in silence with the rest of the small assembled crowd as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Everyone looked drawn and tired, eyes down.

Steve’s face was nearly healed, even his nose, but he still looked pretty fucking awful and he knew it.

The shadows in his big empty house hadn’t improved when his parents came back from where ever the Hell they’d been and the nightmares were _every_ _night_. His mom had even come into his room one night at nearly 3 AM, shaking him awake with a concerned-- or maybe irritated-- twist to her mouth.

“Steven, _shh_ —“ were the first things he heard that weren’t the shouts of children and the menacing clicks of demodogs. Her hands were holding him down into his mattress as he tossed and turned “Wake _up_! It’s just a dream-- You’re going to wake your father, what is the _matter_ _with_ _you_?”

He had apparently been _screaming_. The sweat on his forehead chilled him to the bone, like a fever, and he didn’t know what to say to her questioning gaze, sputtering apologies and swallowing the need to vomit.

They didn’t talk about it. He could feel her eyes on him, though, at the dinner table and sporadically throughout the first few days of break—it was the most attention she’d paid to Steve since he was old enough to know not to touch the antiques. It was almost nice.

But, his mom wasn’t the only one who was keeping an eye on him—Dustin Henderson had started making their pizza and Star Wars thing some sort of standing date, and sometimes he brought Lucas along. The little twerp was inviting his friends over to Steve’s house. He’d just let himself in once Steve answered the door, yelling about the animated Lord of the Rings movie and how Steve needed to be _educated_.

At first Steve didn’t know what to make of it. He definitely didn’t want some kid hanging around, but at the same time-- although he sure wasn’t about to admit it-- it was pretty nice. Dustin didn’t expect much from him. The kid just wanted some company, and maybe some girl advice. Steve also had this sneaking suspicion that he was keeping some sort of tabs on him. The nosy little shit’s gaze was just a little too keen to be casual, and he’d say things like “How’ve you been sleeping?” as if he didn’t know full fucking well that Steve _wasn’t_ sleeping at all. It was pretty hard to hide, and he was so fucking _smart_.

Still, the forced nonchalance in his tone was more than enough to prompt a pretty serious eye roll.

Dustin’s visits became something Steve begrudgingly looked forward to, and it was shortly after Barb’s funeral that he showed up yet again.

“Nancy said she saw you at the funeral.”

Steve raised a disinterested brow, wishing the kid would at least try to hide his concern “Yeah?”

“Yeah—said you didn’t even say hi. That you looked tired.”

“Well, she was pretty busy.” He swigged his coke “Besides, Jonathan had everything under control—no need to bother them.”

Dustin rolled his eyes with such force that Steve momentarily hoped they’d get stuck that way “ _C’mon_ Steve! We’re the only people in the world that understand each other’s shit—why’re you isolating yourself?”

“I’m not…  isolating _anything_ , I…” he huffed a humorless laugh, trailing off when his mind drew a blank, exhaustion tugging on his eyelids even as he spoke.

“Yeah, _sure_ Steve—that’s why you never called Joyce back last week when she invited you to dinner?”

Oh, yeah. Joyce had invited him—all of them-- over for dinner. He’d forgotten, honestly, he hadn’t ignored her, but he couldn’t pretend that he _wanted_ to go.

He shrugged “It was just a busy week—“

“You haven’t taken off those sweatpants in three days, Asshole!” Dustin cried, sighing and putting his head in his hands like a man far older than twelve years old “We’re making it a regular thing— _Friday Night_ _Dinners_. Will needs support right now, and we need your help—“

“Help with _what?_ Will Byers doesn’t know me--!” Steve fired back, a prickle of annoyance lighting up the last of his energy.

“Well, we _all_ need help right now, Steve! I know _I_ do—you’re not sleeping, I’m not sleeping, Joyce isn’t sleeping, everyone’s a _fucking_ mess, just…”the kid trailed off, looking so goddamn dejected that Steve could hardly stand it “ _Please_ , come to dinner this Friday?”

Steve hated being a good person.

“What time?”

He purposely didn’t smile, keeping his lips pressed in a thin line while the little shit crowed with happiness.

 

* * *

 

 

Once break started, there was a new level of security at the house on Cherry Lane. Billy was all but a captive, only allowed to use the Camaro to take Max to and from places—all other times, Neil kept the keys in the locked drawer of his bedside table.

When he took his " _sister"_ to the arcade or a friend’s house, he was instructed to come straight home until he had to pick her up. Neil kept Billy busy with any work he could think of, supervising at all times when he was home and calling when he was at work. Billy had read and re-read four books in those long days, trying anything to escape the simmering undercurrent throughout the small house. Trying to control his desire to lash out, he disappeared into Middle Earth and Narnia, lifted weights, and smoked until he was sure his lungs were nothing but cinders.  

It was explained away to Max that Billy was grounded for “picking fights”. Billy wasn’t sure who he was supposed to be fighting that had given him all the bruises and cuts that Harrington hadn’t, but the stupid little bitch didn’t ask any questions. She never did.

Billy couldn’t even be too angry. After what happened—after he’d ruined Steve Harrington’s pretty face in a haze of finely bottled rage—he had to get some control over his emotions.

At least the brunette was healing, but it didn’t fix the aching, empty hole in Billy’s chest where all that bubbling negativity had been centered. There was nothing there anymore but the guilt, constant fear of Neil, and the itch to _get_ _out_ and escape to _anywhere_  where his dad wasn’t patrolling around him like a prison guard.

He was jittery and lonely, desperate to just open his window, to be able to do anything without Neil hovering over his shoulder.

He had a letter wearing a hole in his back pocket.

Billy wasn’t sure what he’d seen in Steve Harrington’s eyes that day in the locker room, but his heart had been hammering ever since. He saw the image of the broken nose and black eye that Billy had given him and felt as if he was looking in a mirror, seeing his own bruises from his dad. He was turning into that son of a bitch with every punch he threw. Billy didn’t know what Steve had been thinking while looking back at him, but Billy knew he couldn’t do this alone anymore. He needed _help_ , he needed advice.

He needed his girls.

So, he sat down with tears in his eyes and a shaky hand, begging for forgiveness, writing out the details of the past months in the hopes that Ricky or Hugh or Paul would still care about him enough to write back.

And now, the addressed and stamped envelope was always with him, sitting heavily in his pocket until he could get out for long enough to mail it.   

Billy was prowling around the house like a caged animal every day. The _unbearable_ gaze of Susan weighed him down at every meal, igniting that spark back in his chest, scaring himself with the familiar feeling of building anger.

He was trying his best to ignore everyone else at dinner that Friday, pointedly fixing his gaze down on his plate. It was just him, Neil and Susan, since Max had been picked up a couple hours before. She was going to dinner at the _Byers_.

Just the name sent a miserable shiver through Billy, thinking of the state of that house and the damage he’d done there.

“You cold, Son?” Neil broke into his memories, making him jump. A wave of tension permeated the room as soon as his dad’s gaze locked onto him, and Billy itched for a smoke.

He shook his head, not taking his eyes off his plate.

“Hm. And is what Susan so kindly made us for dinner not good enough for you?” he continued, voice cold and measured. Billy just shook his head again, gritting his teeth against the pulse of anxiety that made him tremble.

“ _Neil_ —“ Susan tried to chastise, failing.

“Just not hungry.” He managed to get out, clearing his throat so his voice wouldn’t sound as weak as he felt.  

There was a long beat of silence—all silverware had stopped moving, Billy felt like he’d stopped breathing, and there were two intense gazes on him that he’d lost the ability to face.

“I leave for Indianapolis tomorrow morning—Billy, _look_ at _me_.” Neil continued and Billy looked up out of the surprise rather than compliance. “You know what I expect from you. Tomorrow, you’ll drive Max to her dance, you’ll come right home, you will pick her up at 10:30, not a minute later. You will be courteous and respectful to Susan and take care of Maxine. Is that clear?”

Billy’s stomach flipped, excitement tingling out to the tips of his toes—Neil wouldn’t be home. He’d be _gone_ , too far away to watch Billy’s every move.

“Yes Sir.” He replied, tamping down on the surge of feeling as much as he could. He couldn’t let Neil see. It would ruin everything.

He’d take Max to her stupid little dance. He’d drop the letter in the mailbox at the post office. If he could convince Susan to cover for him, he could even go to the party at Tommy’s that night.

 

* * *

  

The freedom of the open road under his tires sent a thrill through Billy’s blood that sparked up like dynamite. The roar of the engine was better than sex—he inhaled a deep burning plume of smoke and relished the buzz of nicotine, grinning unlike he had in months.

Maxine was home in bed, Billy even managed to snag her five minutes early. She had been practically glowing, her smile soft and enduring, even in the car with no one but Billy. Usually, he would’ve picked on her, he would’ve egged her on until she spilled the beans and told him what happened. He would’ve given the little twerp a scare, but he was too happy himself.

He hadn’t even needed to ask Susan—she’d just pushed the keys into his hand and said “Go out and do something _fun_ , okay? Our secret.”

Billy didn’t even care that she was trying to buy some level of his forgiveness by letting him out of his cage. Billy was going to go to Tommy’s and get high as Hell—he’d even brought the good Cali shit, sitting in his glovebox.

By the time he was rolling up to the big fancy house, the party was in full swing. Some dumbass was puking on the lawn and the bass of some wild music was bumping through the windows.

And there was a familiar Beemer parked on the road.

Billy’s heart jumped into his throat, and he paused on the stoop.

If Steve Harrington was there, Billy wasn’t sure if he could keep it together. He didn’t know if he could look at him in the low light of some party _again_ , high and buzzed and happy, and not kiss the bastard senseless.

“ _HARGROVE_! Get ov’r here—have a beer!” Tommy H was there—Billy had been spotted, and there was no going back.

Billy kept the joint rolled up behind his ear as he got through his first few beers, his eyes peeled for soft brown hair and dark eyes. And bruises.

Even _Billy’s_ face had healed by then-- if Steve’s hadn’t, Billy might never forgive himself.

And then he saw him. He was wasted, but so was Billy. Some girl was chatting Harrington up, pretending to stumble into his chest in a coy way that nearly sent Billy into jealous palpitations, heat blooming in his gut thinking about the fucking insane bulge in those tight jeans.

Still holding maybe half a lukewarm beer in his hand, Billy decided it was about time he lit up that joint. And he knew just who to share it with.

Billy wouldn’t say that he was necessarily _thinking_ when he sauntered up to King Steve and the little slut and made a half-assed show of tripping on the carpet, dumping the last of his shitty beer on Harrington’s broad chest.

“Oh _Harrington_ , so _fuckin’_ sorry—lemme help you with that?” Billy drawled, taking in the brunette’s healed face, pretty as ever, clearly not sorry at all for ruining his shirt.

He was grinning like a wolf, taking in every inch of the former King of Hawkins High as he corralled the drunk brunette down the hallway and into the bathroom, feeling almost like a real person for the first time since before Charlie had been killed and Billy’s life was inverted.

Steve Harrington was still speechless, struck dumb by the booze both in him and on him, until Billy managed to put a door between them and the noise of the party.

“The _fuck_ , Hargrove? I was—“

“Busy? Trust me, she’s not worth your time.” Billy snapped a little harshly, envy sparking up inside him—he yanked the hand towel off the rack and pressed it to Steve’s chest, mopping up the beer there, flipping through drunk, half-formed emotions as he went.

The jealousy, the desire, the shame all swirled up in Billy with a wave of feeling that he hadn't felt since the last time he'd seen Harrington, all busted up in the locker room.

This was a mistake. Steve’s gaze was boring into him and Billy’s stomach was fluttering with nerves—where did he go from here? The beer was clouding his mind, and his grin was fading rapidly under the drunken brown gaze of the prettiest boy he’d ever seen.

“Hargrove, it’s okay—I live around the corner, it’s not—“

“ ‘M sorry, Steve…” spilled out of his mouth completely unbidden. The words Billy had been thinking for all those days since he slammed Harrington into the gym lockers and was forced to see what his rage had done. He was gripping Steve’s wet shirt through the towel in his hand, and this was not about spilled beer or chasing off girls anymore. “ ‘M _sorry_ , and I’m glad I, I didn’t break your pretty face…”

 _Jesus_ , he might need to save that joint for another time, he was so fucking drunk.

There was a long heavy pause, the riotous noise of the party a long forgotten background when Harrington finally spoke, soft and a little slurred “… _Pretty_?” there was a huff of breath that might have been a laugh, and honestly, Billy thought the brunette was making fun of him. He looked up, brow furrowed and ready to spit something vicious at him, but the words died in his mouth.

Steve was _smiling_ at him. It was the low light and the orange glow in those brown eyes that rendered Billy so fucking helpless, unable to defend himself from the shy little grin on Steve Harrington's _pretty_ face.

“Why do you call me _pretty_? You’ve done it before, and…”

“You know why, Dumbass.” He rasped, his voice as weak as his knees when Harrington’s big hand held Billy’s where it was against his chest. As if Billy would ever dream of moving.

“I wanna hear you say it.”

Oh. If Billy was less drunk, if the heat rising from his hips to his flushed cheeks wasn’t so strong, he might have had the fucking self-preservation not to say it “If you were queer, Harrington, I’d climb you like a fucking tree.”

There was a zap of energy between them, electrifying the room, and Billy knew he’d been right all those weeks ago when King Steve had run his gaze down Billy’s body on Halloween. The tingling heat traveling his spine and into his groin made him bold, lips splitting into a triumphant grin, licking his lips.

He’d got him. The _King_ of Hawkins High.

“What makes you think I’m _not_ queer?” Steve asked, a tremble in his voice like he’d never said it out loud before.

Billy shrugged “Just wanted to hear you say it.”

He didn’t know who leaned in first, maybe they’d just been drifting closer and closer for all that time, Billy couldn’t tell. But now, Steve Harrington’s lips were searingly hot on his, and he smelled like beer and fancy cologne and hairspray. Billy _hated_ it and pressed his entire body flush to the other boy.

Steve had a vicious grip on Billy’s hips with his free hand, tugging him impossibly closer and grinding the hard line of his cock against Billy’s through their jeans. Billy would never admit to the sound he made, only twining his hand into that thick brown hair and moaning into those plush lips. Forget electricity, the room felt as if it had been consumed by _fire_ , igniting in the friction of their hips and the way they bit and sucked at each other’s lips.

Billy was trembling, planting his feet into the tile floor to avoid completely melting into Steve’s arms like some little bitch. He wanted to disappear into the heat of this moment, with King Steve’s tongue down his throat and his dick so hard he could barely stand it.

But, the spell broke when both of their lungs started to burn with the need for air, splitting them apart to look back at each other’s stunned, blissed out faces. Steve’s chest was heaving, his exhales quivering, and Billy was sure that he was the same as he took in those puffy, freshly kissed lips.

“We should… people will wonder where we are—“

“Fuck ‘em.” Billy stumbled through the words—he didn’t give a shit about any of those Midwestern dipshits. “Come smoke a joint with me, Harrington. Quarry?” he was grinning, giddy, feeling the pulsing heat of arousal through every inch of his body.

Steve looked at him like he had three heads and two dicks, pupils blown wide and still gripping Billy’s hand over his chest where the blonde could feel the pounding of his heart.

“It’s fucking freezing, Hargrove—“

Billy started to deflate, thinking it was too good to be true, and tried to tug himself out of Steve’s grip.

The brunette only squeezed his hip and held his hand tighter.

“I just said that I live around the corner— _come_ _over_.” He grinned, the whole room bathed in a soft, fuzzy focus, and Billy’s heart soared despite his best efforts to keep himself contained.

 _Come_ _over_. Steve Harrington wanted Billy to come over and kiss his lips and smoke weed and Billy ached with how badly he wanted to keep that smile on his face.

He nodded, dumbstruck and breathless, and King Steve leaned in again, scorching Billy with the force of his kiss. Billy didn’t know anything beyond that hot and desperate press of lips. Drunk, giddy, his gut swarming with butterflies like a first kiss was supposed to be in the movies.

And the night was still young.

 


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PART 1 IS IN THE BOOKS! Thank you for making this story such a hit! So much time and effort and love goes into this series, it makes me feel so fulfilled to know that you like it so much!!! Please comment, tell your friends, subscribe, follow me on tumblr (aphroditestummyrolls)-- let me know what you think of this little diddy. 
> 
> It took a really long time to get this one out, and I'm so sorry for that. Thank you for sticking with me <3
> 
> Enjoy the last chapter of Keep Yourself Alive! And keep your eyes peeled for the next (biggest) installment: Breakthru!

_Steve Harrington had the most beautiful fucking hands that Billy had ever seen. He couldn’t believe he’d barely even noticed them before. Between the beer and the weed and the natural high of_ kissing _those_ lips _, the blonde was lost. He nipped and bit at the soft lips, straddling that_ dick _, and felt those goddamn amazing hands grip at his hips._

_He took a hit on the joint and savored the memory of California in his lungs._

_Steve’s hot brown gaze stared up at him from the bed with an indescribable expression— glazed with the effects of the good shit Billy had brought, glowing in the dark of his ugly bedroom. He almost looked awestruck._

_Billy told himself it was just the drugs, and brushed away the warmth in his chest by focusing on the tight coil of heat in his groin. Billy ground his hips into the hard, thick line of King Steve’s cock through the layers of both their jeans._

_Why the fuck were they both still wearing their jeans?_

_Fitting the joint between Steve’s slack lips, the blonde clumsily reached for his zipper and slid it down. Harrington squirmed against the minimal friction of Billy’s fingers, and those huge hands started pawing at Billy’s own pants, like he’d forgotten what they were there for in the haze of smoke and lust and their complicated pasts.... but Billy wasn’t gonna think about that._

_He was gonna suck King Steve’s fucking gigantic cock._

_“Then get to work, Hargrove.” Steve’s rumbling voice cut into his brain fog, a chuckle behind it as he took a hit._

_In the haze of his mind, Billy thought for a moment that Steve was a mind reader. Harrington was giggling, looking up at him with a sparkle in his eye— he’d clearly said that out loud._

_Maybe in any other situation, Billy would be embarrassed. But his brain was somewhere in the stratosphere, and this was_ Steve Harrington _, and the only thing Billy could think about was making him choke on that laugh. Making him groan and whimper and_ scream _._

_He grinned like the psycho that he was, running his tongue across his teeth, shameless in his need to suck down that dick._

_“Awh fuck you, Pretty Boy...”_

_“Thought I was King Steve?” He shimmied his pants down his hips just a little, pulling out his dick from his underwear._

_It slapped obscenely against his lower abs in the quiet bedroom, and Billy’s own dick grew impossibly harder. His stomach flipped with anticipation, but he took another hit— just to make Harrington wait._

_Billy was so high, he whined at the sight of it. He blew the hot smoke from his lungs up the shaft, and Steve arched his hips a little. The blonde scooted down to lay on his belly between Steve’s legs— they could pretend this never happened later, right? Billy could go back to not giving a shit about Harrington after he’d sated this craving?_

_As if he had ever not cared about Harrington..._

_Billy’s limbs were tingly and heavy, his head was in the clouds, and there was a throbbing warmth pulsing from his hips and throughout his whole body. His fingers finally reached out and made contact, feeling the pulse of Harrington’s hard, beautiful dick under his palm._

_Billy silenced every thought in his stupid brain, then, exhaling another long, hot breath over the head of the cock in his hands and watching the twitch with a slow grin._

_“_ Jesus _, Hargrove— you gonna do it, or—“ Steve cut himself off with a choked groan, those hands curling into fists in the sheets as Billy licked a wet stripe from base to tip._

 _The taste of salt and_ Steve _at the slit made him grind his own painful hard on into the mattress. Billy joined him in a moan, taking the head between his lips and hollowing his cheeks._

 _Jesus_ Christ _, he could die here between Steve’s Harrington’s thighs— he wished he could take all of the other boy’s clothes off, just rip them to shreds until he could find out if the pale skin was as soft as it looked. Billy wished he could bite at the full peach of Steve’s ass, he wished he could kiss every fucking place he had bruised and—_

 _He slicked up the dick in front of him with a hot smear of spit, bobbing his head before choking himself on as much of Harrington as he could fucking take. His throat burned and Steve shouted at the sudden sensation. One of those amazing hands weaved into Billy’s hair, tugging tight. The pain distracted him from the soft feelings in his heart, and Billy blamed the weed— this was just a joint and a suck job. There were no_ emotions  _here._

_Besides, this couldn’t happen again._

_It was an_ apology _. That’s what it was. An apology for what he’d done._

 _His eyes watered and he swallowed around the beautiful cock until he could almost forget who it belonged to. The boy under him panted and groaned and fucking_ ran his mouth _— “oh_ fuck _, Jesus Billy.... n-no one’s ever taken it like this before, how- how—_ guh _, my_ God _...”_

_He finally came up for air, licking wet stripes along the veins on the underside and jacking Harrington with his hand as he regained some of his breath._

_He was painfully hard against his zipper, and Billy couldn’t do anything but hurriedly tug out his own neglected cock. The feeling of_ finally _circling his fingers around his hard on sent a full body shiver through him, making Billy moan long and loud. His breath ghosted over Steve’s hips, and he bucked into the air against Billy’s eager mouth._

 _“No one ever sucked you this good, huh?” the blonde rasped, popping the head back between his lips and sucking hard, laving his tongue against the slit until he tasted precome. Steve made a noise like a sob— a fucking_ sob _— as he shook his head from side to side, and Billy felt the swell of confidence glow in his chest, making his cock twitch and his hips ache._

 _He wanted to make Steve cry with just his mouth. He could do it. He could show him how to please a_ man _, make Harrington a real queer. He wanted to sit on that fucking cock until Steve was pounding him into his stupid mattress. Billy could do things no bitch like Wheeler ever could, he could own Steve Harrington in a way no one else ever could._

 

* * *

 

 

They hadn’t seen each other since that night. Billy had rung him out like nobody in his whole fucking _life_ ever had, blue eyes gleaming and licking his lips in that unfair way that Steve  _hated_. The blonde had sucked his soul out through his dick and then came all over Steve's stomach like he was marking his goddamn territory, and his grin had been absolutely _feral_. 

Steve wished he could be grossed out, but he'd jacked off to the memory every night since. 

And then Billy slipped out through the back, his joint tucked behind his ear and a sway in his hips. Like the clock had struck twelve and the spell was broken, and Billy Hargrove had to go back to being a psychotic asshole.

It had been the only night in the 6 weeks since the Gate closed that Steve managed to sleep through the whole night. 

Steve would give up just about anything for another night of _actual rest_. 

Break seemed to crawl by, and Steve’s anxiety ratcheted up like a Richter scale with the closer they came to the first day back at school. 

The counselors, the assignments, the gossips,  _Billy fucking Hargrove_  and his  _mouth_ — he wouldn’t be able to escape. Steve could practically feel those blue eyes boring into him already, his gut filling up with tingly butterflies and his dick making an embarrassingly interested twitch in his jeans. 

Steve thought about any horrible thing he could— the demodogs, poor Bob Newby, Nancy saying “bullshit” like she hated his guts, even the concussion Billy had given him—  _anything_  to keep himself from a full hard on at 8 AM on a Monday morning. While in the car with  _Dustin_   _Henderson_.

He wasn’t  _excited_  to see Billy, he told himself, he was just nervous. Steve was always nervous. It was normal. 

What would Billy say? Would he even say  _anything_? Would he pretend nothing ever happened, lash out and be _more_ of an asshole? What if it had all been some elaborate ploy to start a rumor that Steve was queer? 

But, that wouldn't make any fucking sense, Billy had been the one with his  _mouth_  on Steve's  _cock_ \-- he'd even fucking  _swallowed_. Billy was the real queer here, right? If he'd started spreading rumors, Steve could take Billy down with him. He could fight fire with fire if he had to...

Steve gripped the steering wheel like it was the last stable thing in existence--

“What’re you staring at, Steve? Gas pedal is on the  _left_.” Dustin broke into his thousands of thoughts, being a snarky little asshole. 

The traffic light was green, though, and people were starting to honk at Steve’s absent-mindedness. 

“The gas is on the  _right_ , dumbass.” He grumbled “This is why I’m the one driving.” 

There was a long pause, and Steve could feel the kid’s keen eyes staring at him, irritation mingling with the anxiety and  _excitement_  that he couldn’t ignore. 

“Are you still not sleeping, Steve? What’s wrong?” 

Of course, he assumed it was the nightmares— Steve supposed he should be grateful that Dustin didn’t somehow figure to ask him about the guy who blew him last week. But, considering how little he wanted to talk about the dark corners of his house and the screeching of demodogs in his mind, the brunette very nearly  _wished_  that the tween in his passenger seat would ask him about how he was going to handle seeing Billy Hargrove that day. 

Steve felt the finely tuned vibration of panic in his bones, the desperation for a good night's sleep and maybe another hit of Hargrove's stash. Or something  _else_ from Hargrove.

He blamed the nightmares. He was  _fine_.  

And lucky. He was lucky because that was when they pulled into the parking lot between the middle and high schools— Steve could escape those concerned eyes on him from over the center console, boring into him. He nearly tripped out of the Beemer, grabbing his bookbag and not stopping to listen as Dustin called after him. He sped away and didn’t slow down until the front doors of Hawkins High were safely between them.

People looked over at him from over their books as he passed, and Steve fidgeted nervously with his hands in his hair. He hardly looked like he had before—before the Gate and Billy smashing his face, back when he still slept—but, he’d tried his best to be his usual self.

His brown hair flopped a little into his eyes and Steve felt his whole body tightening with anxiety. People were staring, he could _feel_ it. Steve’s gut was like a pressure cooker of irritability and nerves—he almost felt like he was gonna hurl.

Steve tugged on his lip, ducking into the blissfully empty locker room to avoid the stares.

Was it just because he looked like death warmed over? Steve caught his own gaze in the mirror and almost jumped, because he did truly look like shit.

His eyes were circled with dark gray smudges. He was exhausted. Pale and deflated under the shitty fluorescent lights of the locker room. Steve needed to fucking _sleep_.

Was it just that? Was that the only reason why he’d seen Stacy O’Brian whispering into her hand while Whitney Anderson gawped at Steve with wide, scandalized eyes?

Billy must’ve said something. Hargrove had fucking said _something_ about Steve getting his cock sucked by _someone_ —must’ve insinuated some way that Steve was _queer_. Maybe he’d said something about Steve’s wandering gaze in the showers.

As if Steve hadn’t been acutely aware of the blue gaze tingling along his spine _right_ _back_ at him all those times.

 _Fuck_ Hargrove— _goddamnit_ , Steve had no fucking _clue_ what he’d do if people _knew_. His throat was closing, his lungs burned all of a sudden, and Steve needed a _cigarette_ —

“Hey Harrington.” A familiar drawl echoed behind him. “You look like you could use a smoke… or somethin’ _better_.”

Steve whirled around, biting down on a sudden coursing rage, desperate fear clutching his chest and making him feel wild. The smirk on Hargrove’s lips was gone in an instant and he looked almost afraid.

“Whoa there—“

“Did you fucking tell--?” Steve managed to choke out, gripping the edge of the sink in front of him, his heart beating almost too loud for him to hear the blonde scoff.

“Yeah, Harrington, I told all of Hawkins that I sucked your dick—told ‘em just how much I fucking liked it, too.” He was back to drawling, more sarcastic now, and Steve supposed he was being ridiculous.

It was _ridiculous_.

Billy had lit up a cig, the smoke hovering in an unfairly alluring way around his face. His blue eyes nearly glowed as he looked Steve up and down, despite the deadpan expression he was trying to maintain. A tingle of heat sparked in Steve’s hips, through all the layers of exhaustion and fear and irrational bullshit in his brain, and he caught himself almost reaching out to beckon the blonde toward him.

Hargrove answered the unspoken call, his boots on the tile giving Steve palpitations. He could only hope that he was getting up close because he was going to give him a puff of that smoke—Steve didn’t even _like_ cigarettes. Not until the acrid stench of smoke started reminding him of Billy’s smell on his sheets.

“Why the Hell would I tell anyone?”

There was barely a breath of space between them, and Steve was lost in that penetrating blue gaze. He just shrugged, totally half-assed. Part of Steve still thought Billy might hit him—still couldn’t shake the memory that Billy was a dangerous fucker, but Steve didn’t care. He needed a taste of that cigarette.

Or maybe something _better_.

“No one's even really looking at you-- just that fucking cow, Sammie or whatever. Besides, maybe they're staring cus' you look like shit. They still think you’re all torn up about _Wheeler_ …” he took a long drag, pinning him against the sink with a hand on either side of his hips. Steve wanted to be between those pink lips in a nearly painful way. “I can tire you out, Pretty Boy—like she _never_ could. You’ll forget her name. You’ll be too busy screaming _mine_. What d’you say?”

He exhaled his smoke right between their faces, his tongue flicking out across his lips—fucking _feral_. Billy was so wild. He took the cig and fit it in Steve’s slack mouth, sending his blood pumping south.

The whole basketball team could have walked in and Steve wouldn’t have even noticed.

Mouth dry and feeling almost _shy_ , Steve finally managed to clear his throat and seal his fate.

“Wanna skip first period?”

Billy grinned like a wolf, like a predator. And Steve was happy to be prey.


End file.
